Although the virus may not be life-threatening for everyone who catches the virus, it can be life-changing.
Summer Maxwell said she contracted COVID-19 in July. She reported that she felt constant dizziness and loss of taste and smell.
“The initial feeling was shocking, devastating,” she said. ‘I constantly ate food and constantly drank things that normally had a strong taste. Could not drink anything. Could not smell anything. Nothing.’
The 27-year-old Chicagoan said five months later that she still feels the impact of the virus.
She said her smell eventually returned, but so did the dizziness. When she drinks alcohol, her taste buds disappear from before.
“It’s nothing else. To feel completely normal and then be almost absent from your body is exactly how it feels,” she said.
Jhary Bornip said that due to the virus she was faced with breathing challenges and difficult breathing, and that she also lost her sense of taste and smell.
The 32-year-old said she saw an ear, nose and throat specialist.
She said the road to getting back was expensive.
“Now I’m doing a treatment that’s not covered by insurance, so it’s expensive,” she said.
The ladies are members of a group that no one wants to belong to: the ‘long throwers’ who experience the side effects of COVID-19 long after they have contracted it.
“Younger adults do not initially become as ill with COVID, but young adults, like others, are susceptible to long-term, persistent symptoms or so-called long-distance COVID,” said Dr. Deborah Burnet, head of general medicine, said. University of Chicago.
Burnet said symptoms can range from fatigue to shortness of breath, cough, joint pain, brain fog and loss of taste and smell.
“You can not predict what symptoms an individual will have. Some people are dealing with headaches, sleep problems. So it’s not something to throw off. Oh, I can handle it not to smell. Nobody knows how. it’s not going to affect them, “she said.
Chicago R&B singer Jeremih recently shared his battle with the virus after fighting for his life in the hospital for weeks.
RELATED: Jeremih shares details of fight for life against COVID-19, a new album featuring Chance The Rapper
At 33, he considered himself very healthy.
“I was weak. I probably went 220 in there and left at 175. I’m like I’m close to skin and bones,” he said. “I would not wish anyone to go through what I went through,” he said.
Bornip and Maxwell said they are grateful because they know things may seem much worse to them, but they can not help but wish that their lives would become normal.
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