“CogIt 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.”
A little boy caught Covid in 2022 and never recovered, with his mother fighting in vain for care in upstate NY, repeatedly dismissed by uninformed American doctors in top notch Albany hospital.
the doctor told them that he had Covid, and, while the fever went away after a week, the toddler never fully bounced back. His mother watched the pulse in his neck, drumming against the skin…
…Micah’s primary-care doctor told Keri-Sue the elevated pulse was nothing to worry about, just swollen glands, a vestige of Covid. But Micah, who had grown out of napping, had begun to doze off during the day. He didn’t have the energy to return to his local playgroup…
…’I said we need to be more thorough, and went down a long list. And every single one of them, he was just like, ‘No, no, that’s not what’s happening. Kids are not getting long Covid. No, it’s not anything with his heart, or his fingers would be blue. No, it’s not his liver.’ When we left, I had been given a prescription for an allergy medicine.’…
…Eventually, the doctors confirmed Micah had an enlarged heart and blood clots on his liver. From her earlier Googling, Keri-Sue knew straight away he needed blood thinners, but the clinicians said they wanted to do more tests and start treatment in the morning. At this point, it was early evening, and the family, who had been at the hospital all day, worried about letting another night slip by. They were reassured: ‘We have a whole team of doctors that are working on this, and this is really treatable stuff and he’s very stable right now.’…
…A blood clot had travelled to Micah’s lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. His heart had stopped beating and they couldn’t revive him. Nothing could be done. They put Micah in his mother’s arms and started counting. One, two, three … when they reached 60 they declared him dead.”
“Earlier that summer, my daughter tested positive for Covid-19 and had developed a high fever, shortness of breath, shivers, and chest pains. She initially regained her energy and by the time school started, I thought she had recovered. I was wrong. That night I found her lying on the couch was the beginning of my daughter’s difficult journey with Long Covid — a journey that transformed her life, and mine as a single mother.”