The testimony about the chronic fatigue of a 32-year-old woman dragging the consequences of the coronavirus | The NY Journal
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Chronic fatigue is one of the symptoms experienced by thousands of recovered COVID-19 patients, even those who were not so sick.
If you’ve read news of people with coronavirus experiencing “permanent” symptoms, the Jade Gray-Christie story may be familiar to you. She had “mild” symptoms and was not hospitalized, but her life has turned upside down since she fell ill in March.
Before the pandemic, Jade had a very busy life.
The 32-year-old Londoner combined a rewarding job supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with an active social life, going to the gym three times a week.
But in the early hours of the morning on March 15, Jade came home from a long day at work and knew something was wrong.
“I felt terrible. I was very hot and very cold, and I couldn’t stop coughing, coughing and coughing “he told me in a low voice, with difficulty breathing.
As the days went by, Jade, who is asthmatic and lives alone, began to feel worse and more scared.
He called 111 (the emergency number). They sent him an ambulance, but the paramedics refused to enter. “They spoke to me through the window and asked what was wrong with me,” she says.
Lying on the bed and barely able to utter the words, Jade explained that she was having trouble breathing and that her chest hurt a lot.
They told him he had the typical “covid cough”But because of her age they couldn’t take her to the hospital. You are young and your body is strong enough to recover, they told him.
Jade was surprised. “What do I do with my [dificultades de] breathing? I am asthmaticto. I live sunto, so if something happens I have no one to help“, He commented.
But they replied that they did not take anyone under the age of 70 in case they could infect someone else in the hospital.
“I understood what they were saying, but at the same time it was very bad and I didn’t know what was going to happen. At night I was scared when I went to bed, ”says Jade.
Over time, it seemed to improve little by little. But every time he thought he was on the mend, his symptoms would return.
In May, she felt good enough to start working from home part-time. She had chest pain and sometimes felt tired, but she thought she could manage.
Until at the end of the month, something changed.
Sleeping 16 hours a day
“Me [dolor de] chest got worse again. It was hard for me to breathe and I couldn’t get out of bed, ”she says. “My fatigue was unlike anything I had ever experienced before”.
The months passed with little improvement. Sometimes slept more than 16 hours a day and she had a hard time doing daily activities to take care of herself.
When I spoke to Jade in late July, she told me that her doctor had told her that she had postviral fatigueBut they didn’t give her any advice on how to manage her symptoms, beyond establishing a routine for sleeping and waking up.
The idea was to learn recovery strategies to help improve your quality of life and stabilize your health.
But Jade had a hard time understanding how to apply it to her life. Maintaining a routine was almost impossible, as often woke up exhausted and went back to sleep.
“When I spoke to the doctor about my dizziness, the fact that I had passed out and also my fatigue, he openly told me that I did not know how help me and that the virus is still very new. This, of course, made me feel even worse, “he says.
If the doctors couldn’t help me, then who? He wondered.
Covid “long term”
The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges that it does not fully understand covid-19.
He says typical recovery times are two weeks for mild patients and up to eight for severe ones, but he acknowledges that there are people like Jade who continue to have symptoms for longer.
In such cases, says the WHO, symptoms can include extreme fatigue, persistent cough, or exercise intolerance. The virus can cause inflammation in the lungs, cardiovascular and neurological systems, and it can take a long time for the body to recover.
Jade’s experience has happened to tens of thousands of other people, and is known as “Long-term covid”.
Barbara Melville, administrator of a support group on Facebook for these types of patients, explains that many of them say that they do not have access to the care and support they need, that they do not take them seriously or that they tell them that their symptoms are caused by anxiety.
How to conserve energy if you have fatigue
- To deal with fatigue, occupational therapists use “the three pes’s”: planning, pacing (pace) and prioritization
- This involves identifying strategies to make things easier and manage energy more effectively.
- For example, if the shower is strenuous, try it at a different time of day or sit instead of standing
- Divide the activities into smaller tasks and spread them out throughout the day
- Plan 30 to 40 minutes of breaks between activities
Lauren Walker, Royal College of Occupational Therapists, UK
Where does this leave patients? For many it is a question of patience.
In Jade’s case, her health continues to decline, but now she receives sessions of physiotherapy and of occupational therapy at the covid clinic of the University College Hospital in London.
Their bosses have been very supportive, which has made a difference. They told him that they had seen many similar cases.
“It was a huge relief,” she says, having spent many months feeling that she had to prove that what was happening to her was not “all in her head.”
In the end, received a letter confirming your diagnosis from covid-19 this week.
Jade now plans to work from home for the rest of the year, with reduced hours and responsibilities, and has been advised to break up her day, working into two-hour periods with short breaks in between.
She is happy to be able to return to work and to have her mind active.
Barbara Melville cautions that not all employers are so understanding and states that she has read many stories in her support group of people forced to return to work too soon.
“They are afraid of not being able to feed their families. Rest and regulation of the rhythm of life they are a privilege“, Comments to the BBC.
Others have told you that they face discrimination at work because they cannot provide proof that they had the disease, even though tests were not available for months, and they were not given the adjustments they needed to work safely.
However, he is hopeful that this crisis will lead to a cultural shift in how people living with long-term health problems are treated.
“The covid has highlighted the inequalities and This is a chance to start doing something“, He points out.
Jade says that after getting sick she really felt like her life was ending. Only when she began to receive support, attention and understanding did things begin to change for her.
Now you feel like you can find a way to cope with your new normal.
Photograph by Zoë Savitz
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