Although the virus may not be fatal for everyone who catches it, it can change everyone’s life.
Summer Maxwell said she hired COVID-19 in July. She reported feeling constant dizziness and loss of taste and smell.
“The initial sensation was shocking, devastating,” she said. “I ate constantly, drank things that normally had a strong taste. I couldn’t drink anything. I couldn’t smell anything. Nothing.”
Five months later, Chicagoan, 27, said he was still feeling the impact of the virus.
She said that her scent was finally back, but so was the dizziness. When she drinks alcohol, her taste buds disappear again.
“It’s nothing like that. Feeling completely normal and then being almost absent from the body is exactly what it is,” she said.
Jhary Bornip said he faced breathing problems and difficulty breathing as a result of the virus, and also lost his sense of taste and smell.
The 32-year-old woman said she consulted an ear, nose and throat specialist.
She said the road to regaining her senses has been an expensive one.
“Now I am having a treatment that is not covered by insurance, so it is expensive,” she said.
Women are members of a group that nobody wants to belong to: the “long-haulters”, who experience the side effects of COVID-19 long after they contract it.
“Younger adults are often not so sick with COVID to begin with, but young people, like others, may be susceptible to prolonged symptoms or so-called COVID from long distance,” said Dr. Deborah Burnet, Chief of Medicine General Internship University of Chicago.
Burnet said the symptoms could range from fatigue to shortness of breath, coughing, joint pain, brain fog and loss of taste and smell.
“You can’t predict what symptoms an individual will have. Some people are dealing with headaches, sleep problems. So it’s not something to throw away. Oh, I can handle the fact that it doesn’t smell. Nobody knows how it works. will affect them, “she said.
Chicago R&B singer Jeremih recently shared his battle with the virus after spending weeks in the hospital fighting for his life.
RELATED: Jeremih Shares Details of Fight for Life Against COVID-19, New Album with Chance The Rapper
At 33, he considered himself very healthy.
“I was weak. I went in there probably weighing 220 and left with 175. I’m almost skin and bones,” he said. “I would not wish that on anyone, to go through what I went through,” he said.
Bornip and Maxwell said they are grateful because they know that things can seem a lot worse for them, but they can’t help but wish their lives to go back to normal.
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