Over the last four years, Angela Meriquez Vázquez has faced a long list of health scares and conditions, any of which could have had a profound impact on her life individually. From mini-strokes to brain swelling to seizures to painful heart palpitations — not to mention severe shortness of breath, extreme confusion and numbness in her face — Vasquez didn’t start to experience these events until after she got infected with COVID-19 in March 2020.

Prior to the infection, Vázquez was a healthy runner for nearly 20 years. Today, she is on 12 different prescription medications, including weekly IV treatments at the hospital. She has a “strict pacing regimen” that allows her to work from home, but not much else.

“I do not socialize, or enjoy my old hobbies, and I don’t really leave my home, especially now that I am now considered high-risk,” Vázquez said in a hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, emphasizing that Congress needs to treat long-COVID like the crisis it is. “We are living through what is likely to be the largest mass disabling event in modern history.”

Vázquez was one of three long COVID patients who confronted Congress about the issue for the first time on Jan. 18 in Washington D.C.