It has taken me several months to put this post together . . . partly because I don’t want to revisit this nightmare, but also because I feel like my words normally fall on deaf ears.
I’m a 29-year-old mother, with no pre-existing conditions, and I am STILL suffering from Covid-19, months after my initial diagnosis and treatment. I followed every precaution recommended by the CDC and local health officials. I wore my mask, sanitized everything like crazy, stayed home unless it was for an essential task, and I still got this virus. Let me tell you something that hopefully you have heard before: Covid-19 is not like the flu. It is a nightmare of a virus that attacks your entire body, and the scariest part is that doctors don’t know enough about it yet to predict the long-term side effects.
I can’t begin to impress upon you how my world has been turned upside-down by this virus. It has been roughly two months since I was diagnosed and tested positive. To this day, I have chronic lung problems which sometimes make it impossible for me to go up and down the stairs in my home. I have dealt with three blood clots so far (FYI, Covid-19 makes your blood extremely thick, and no one knows why yet). I feel like I have aged 30 years in the past two months. The scariest part for me is that the physicians who are treating me are playing catch up at best. They are running miles behind me while the side effects of this virus are racing 90 mph through my body.
I hear you saying, “Well most people have mild cases,” and “The number of deaths are
decreasing,” and “People have to be able to go back to their everyday lives.” I hope that after reading this post you can understand that sometimes “mild cases” turn into months of long-term health problems. I was not in a hospital or on a ventilator, and I am still dealing with this virus. Mine was a “mild case.”
If I can prevent even one person from becoming infected by sharing my story, then it was worth it. Instead of brushing it aside and moving on with our lives, let’s have compassion and love for our fellow humans. Even one death due to Covid-19 is too many. Even one mother who can’t play with her child anymore is too many. Even one mild case of this virus can change your life forever.
