Long COVID is snuffing out some patients\u2019 dreams of having children, sharpening the pain of loss, grief and medical neglect.<\/b><\/p>\n
When Melanie Broadley and her husband started going out in 2019, like many couples their age they decided to put \u201cstarting a family\u201d on the shelf for a few years so they could focus on their careers. A postdoctoral researcher who studies diabetes and psychology, Broadley was 28 and in good health \u2014 she had plenty of time, she reasoned. Then, in 2022, she caught SARS-CoV-2 and developed long COVID, blowing up her life as she knew it and, for now at least, her hopes of having a baby.<\/p>\n
\u201cI became totally disabled by long COVID,\u201d says Broadley, 34, who lives at her parents\u2019 house in Brisbane. On a good day she struggles with debilitating fatigue that worsens after any kind of physical or mental activity, an autonomic nervous system disorder called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS<\/a>), which causes her heart rate to spike when she stands up, cognitive dysfunction that means she can\u2019t read or write for more than 10 minutes at a time, and an immune disorder, called mast cell activation syndrome<\/a>, that triggers allergic reactions. Even though she\u2019s been doing everything she can to recover, she\u2019s still too unwell to cope with a potential pregnancy.<\/p>\n And it hurts. \u201cI wasn\u2019t ever going to be a young mum but for at least the last three or four years it\u2019s definitely been something I\u2019ve wanted,\u201d Broadley says. \u201cWhen I\u2019m watching a TV show about pregnancy or birth or miscarriage I become emotionally affected \u2014 it feels like my drive to have a child is almost biological, it\u2019s something I need to do \u2026 So I really worry that if I don\u2019t have a kid, it\u2019s something I will regret and feel pain about for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Long COVID is snuffing out some patients\u2019 dreams of having children, sharpening the pain of loss, grief and medical neglect.<\/b><\/p>\n When Melanie Broadley and her husband started going out in 2019, like many couples their age they decided to put \u201cstarting a family\u201d on the shelf for a few years so they could focus on their careers. A postdoctoral researcher who studies diabetes and psychology, Broadley was 28 and in good health \u2014 she had plenty of time, she reasoned. Then, in 2022, she caught SARS-CoV-2 and developed long COVID, blowing up her life as she knew it and, for now at least, her hopes of having a baby.<\/p>\n \u201cI became totally disabled by long COVID,\u201d says Broadley, 34, who lives at her parents\u2019 house in Brisbane. On a good day she struggles with debilitating fatigue that worsens after any kind of physical or mental activity, an autonomic nervous system disorder called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which causes her heart rate to spike when she stands up, cognitive dysfunction that means she can\u2019t read or write for more than 10 minutes at a time, and an immune disorder, called mast cell activation syndrome, that triggers allergic reactions. Even though she\u2019s been doing everything she can to recover, she\u2019s still too unwell to cope with a potential pregnancy.<\/p>\n