There is a scene in a season 5 episode of ’80s sitcom The Golden Girls where one of the main characters, Dorothy, who has been…
Comments closedTag: first-person stories
‘Abandoned and betrayed’: Removal of mask requirement in B.C. health care sparks outcry
We’ve come a long way from the days of general mask mandates for the public, but a recent move to eliminate the requirement in B.C. health care settings is causing some outcry.
According to a recent BC Ministry of Health release, “People are still encouraged to wear medical masks in health care settings as appropriate,” but it is not mandatory.
Some groups, including Protect Our Province BC and DoNoHarm BC, are questioning the decision. This response comes after B.C. announced that it was launching the spring immunization campaign on April 8.
Comments closedThe pandemic didn’t end for this P.E.I. woman, who wants more support for those with long COVID
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: CBC News
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By Stephen Brun
Just over two years ago, Nikkie Gallant never would have imagined that simply sitting up in bed would be an exhausting task for her.
That’s been the P.E.I. musician’s reality since the fall of 2022, when she was diagnosed with post-COVID condition, more commonly known as “long COVID.”
Now she drains a lot of energy just going to the sink for a glass of water or folding laundry. She often has to forget about plans to leave the house.
Comments closed‘Something was wrong with my brain’: How covid leaves its mark on cognition
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: The Washington Post
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By Richard Sima
In March 2020, Hannah Davis fell ill, and everything changed. Her respiratory symptoms were mild, but the neurological and cognitive fallout was frightening.
“I could tell very early on that something was wrong with my brain,” she said after getting sick with covid-19.
And Davis had quantitative proof — her score for processing speed on a cognitive test dropped from the 96th percentile right before the pandemic to the 14th percentile after her coronavirus infection.
Comments closedYoung people with long Covid ‘battle’ for NHS care
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Published by: BBC News
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By Michela Riva, Jordan Davies
Young people living with debilitating symptoms caused by long Covid have described feeling abandoned and having to “battle” to access NHS support.
Kaylee, 17, a once promising gymnast who hoped to represent her country, developed the virus on her 12th birthday and still experiences symptoms including dizziness and shortness of breath, causing her to miss school and give up on the sport she loves.
Two million people in the UK have long Covid, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Comments closedA 19-year-old athlete now spends his days bedridden because of long COVID
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: Le Journal de Montréal
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By Erika Aubin
Struck down by long COVID for the past year, a great athlete and CEGEP student remains hopeful even if he has to spend his days lying down doing nothing, because the slightest effort completely exhausts him.
“Deep down, I think I’ll heal completely, but it’s going to take time. I trust science,” says Ludovic Bégin, with a weak voice on the other end of the line.
Comments closedLong COVID, “is it going to be like this for the rest of my life?”
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Published by: Radio-Canada
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By Émile Lapointe
Five years after COVID-19 disrupted the daily lives of many people in the country, some are still dealing with the lingering after-effects of this virus, whose symptoms are most often similar to those of the flu and fade after a few days. For Marie-Noëlle Claveau, the effects of long COVID persist, years later.
The singing professor and coordinator of the music program at Collège d’Alma has been dealing with the consequences of this disease since November 2023. Since then, she has been on sick leave and is being monitored at the long COVID clinic at the Jonquière Hospital.
“Let’s just say that the years 2023 and 2024 were quite difficult, but I can say that progress continues to be made slowly but surely,” says Marie-Noëlle Claveau.
Comments closedLives on hold: Thousands of Quebecers suffering from long COVID five years after pandemic began
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Published by: Montreal Gazette
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By Jesse Feith
Roxanne Major was working as an auxiliary nurse in a seniors’ residence two years ago when a COVID-19 outbreak spread through the home, infecting staff and residents.
Asked to replace a colleague who fell ill, Major took extra precautions. She disinfected her medication cart three times and wore a mask, full gown, gloves and protective glasses.
Despite her efforts, Major soon tested positive herself. Following a brief attempt to return to work the next week — the dizziness and exhaustion were too much — she was granted 10 days off to recover.
Two years later, Major, 40, has yet to return to the job she loved for 19 years. As she said in a recent interview, “everything went upside down.”
Comments closedLife has gone back to normal. But those with long COVID continue to suffer
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: CBC News
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By Leah Hendry
When Nathanael Rafinejad first moved to Montreal, they loved the city’s nightlife and worked as a bartender and a waiter while studying business management.
But after catching COVID-19 in January 2022, the 29-year-old is now mostly confined to their apartment.
“I feel completely cut off from the world most of the time,” said Rafinejad. “I can’t walk anymore. I cannot stand for more than a few seconds at a time. I can’t sit for a long time. I have to use a wheelchair every day.”
Comments closedSeeing your life turned upside down
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: La Presse
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By Rima Elkouri
To illustrate her long journey through long COVID, Dr. Anne Bhéreur shows me a photo sent to her by her friend Julie Pinard, who also suffers from a severe form of the disease. It shows the ice of the river at Kamouraska, sparkling in a thousand pieces under a winter sun. In the distance, fog. On the other bank, Mont des Éboulements.
The photo captures what Dr. Bhéreur has been going through since she was infected with COVID-19. It was in December 2020, following an outbreak in the palliative care setting where she worked. The doctor, a mother in her forties with no medical history and boundless energy, was convinced that she would return to her old life after 10 days. More than four years later, while she is still living with serious after-effects of the disease, she is beginning to come to terms with the idea that this life may not come back.
Comments closed‘We’re losing decades of our life to this illness’: long Covid patients on the fear of being forgotten
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Published by: The Guardian / The Observer
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By Kathryn Bromwich
Five years on from March 2020, millions of people still face debilitating symptoms, with huge repercussions on public health and productivity. But politicians are starting to pretend the pandemic never happened
On 20 March 2020, Rowan Brown started to feel a tickle at the back of her throat. Over the next few days, new symptoms began to emerge: difficulty breathing, some tiredness. By the following week, the UK had been put under lockdown in a last-minute attempt to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, or Covid-19. No one else she knew had yet been infected, so she posted updates on Facebook to keep people informed: “Oh, guys, it feels like a mild flu. Tonsillitis was definitely worse.”
Brown didn’t know then she was at the beginning of a condition that did not yet have a name, but which has since become known as long Covid. After two weeks, she had a Zoom with a friend, and at the end of the conversation it was as if all life force had drained out of her body. Her doctor advised her to stay in bed for two weeks. Those two weeks turned into three and a half months of extended Covid symptoms: nausea, fevers, night sweats, intense muscle and joint pain, allodynia (a heightened sensitivity to pain), hallucinations, visual disturbances. By the end of the three months, she had noted 32 different symptoms. “I didn’t recognise the way my body felt at all: my skin, my hair,” she remembers now. “It was like being taken over by a weird alien virus, which I guess is what happened.”
Comments closedA young Coloradan learning to live with long COVID turns to TikTok to educate about chronic illness
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Published by: The Denver Post
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By Jessica Seaman
Lilly Downs rolled out of bed in her new apartment and began setting up her morning’s IV fluids, which flow from a tube in her chest into her bloodstream to keep the 20-year-old hydrated.
Next, she crushed and dissolved pills so they could run through a separate tube into her intestines, which absorb the medicine better than her stomach.
The steps Lilly took that October morning are necessary because her stomach stopped working properly following her first bout with COVID-19 four years ago. But her routine also served another purpose: It was content she filmed for a video that she later posted on TikTok, where she has amassed nearly 470,000 followers.
Comments closedMany long COVID patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on
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Published by: CTV News / Reuters
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By Jennifer Rigby, Julie Steenhuysen
There are certain phrases that Wachuka Gichohi finds difficult to hear after enduring four years of living with long COVID, marked by debilitating fatigue, pain,…
Comments closedWhat It’s Like to Have Long COVID As a Kid
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Published by: Time
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By Alana Kaufman
It started when my brain gave out on me in algebra class one January day in 2022. I couldn’t figure out a simple math problem; all I saw were numbers and symbols. My eyelids drooped, my head hurt, I could barely stay awake. Something wasn’t right.
I hadn’t felt like myself since getting COVID-19 a couple weeks earlier. Simple tasks like reading a text or standing up were draining. But what happened in that classroom scared me. At age 14, my life became a state of constant exhaustion, punctuated by doctors’ visits that, months later, would lead to a Long COVID diagnosis. Still, in those early weeks, I felt determined. I was a high-achieving student athlete always eager to accept a challenge—and I felt confident that I could get past whatever this was quickly.
Comments closed‘It’s a complete upturn of the way you live’: Saskatchewan woman shares struggle to find long COVID supports
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Published by: Global News
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By Destiny Meilleur
The COVID-19 pandemic is a thought of the past for many people, but for others, COVID forever altered their lives.
And in the province of Saskatchewan, there have been very limited resources available to these people.
“It’s a complete upturn of the way you live, the way you view yourself, the way you view mortality, for sure,” said Hunter Reavley.
For Reavley, she held many dreams for her future before she got COVID-19 and the infection changed her life, but not for the better.
Comments closedLondon clinical trial targets lingering COVID toll on patients – smell distortion
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Published by: The London Free Press
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By Beatriz Baleeiro
Haunted for more than a year by phantom smells she couldn’t explain, Rebecca Bruzzese said she worried about her safety and mental health.
She could smell burning cigarettes in her living room, but no one was smoking. Beef frying on the stove smelled like “excrement in a pan.” Coffee was even worse.
“It smelled like hot garbage,” the 32-year-old said.
Unable to eat, Bruzzese lost 30 pounds and developed other health problems.
Comments closedFor kids with long COVID, “back to school” often means not returning at all
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: Salon
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By Nicole Karlis
In January 2022, Jennifer Robertson’s now 11-year-old son, Fergus, developed long COVID, a condition in which the symptoms of COVID-19 linger for months or even years. Due to his symptoms, he missed nearly six weeks of school after his first infection. He’d be in and out of the classroom for the rest of the school year.
Robertson never knew how her son would feel day to day. After three months of daily fever spikes, red eyes, and chest pains, the family pulled him out of their school to be homeschooled for a year. There was hope when he returned to in-person school last year at a private, and more flexible, school.
Comments closedPeople in Sudbury say free COVID-19 rapid test kits are hard to come by
Still COVIDing Canada Posts
Published by: CBC News
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By Kate Rutherford
Along with an increase in colds and the flu across northern Ontario this fall; pharmacies are seeing a bump in people searching, unsuccessfully, for rapid antigen COVID-19 tests to take at home.
In Sudbury, Ont., Lucio Fabris was one of them.
He recently went on the hunt for a test for his wife who had been exposed to COVID-19.
They were expecting a grandchild and they didn’t want to spread the virus to vulnerable family members.
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