While the virus may not endanger the lives of all those who contract the virus, it can change lives.
Summer Maxwell said he hired COVID-19 in July. He reported feeling constant dizziness and loss of taste and smell.
“The initial feeling was shocking, devastating,” he said. “I was constantly eating food, constantly drinking things that normally had a powerful taste. I couldn’t drink anything. I couldn’t smell anything. Nothing.”
Five months later, the 27-year-old girl said she still felt the impact of the virus.
He said his smell is finally back, but so is the dizziness. When you drink alcohol, your taste buds disappear again.
“It’s nothing like that. Feeling completely normal and then being almost absent from the body is exactly how you feel,” he said.
Jhary Bornip said he faced respiratory problems and strained his breathing as a result of the virus, and that he also lost his sense of taste and smell.
The 32-year-old said she has seen a specialist in ears, nose and throat.
He said the road to regaining his senses has been costly.
“Now I’m doing a treatment that’s not covered by insurance, so it’s expensive,” he said.
Women are part of a group no one wants to belong to: “long-lasting launchers” who experience side effects of COVID-19 long after contracting it.
“Younger adults often don’t get as sick with COVID to begin with, but young adults, like others, may be susceptible to long, persistent symptoms or so-called long-term COVIDs,” Dr. Deborah Burnet, head of general internal medicine, 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’t predict what symptoms an individual will have. Some people have sleep problems and headaches. So it’s not something that can be left behind. Oh, yes I can try not to smell. No one knows how the will affect “. she said.
Chicago R&B singer Jeremih recently shared his battle with the virus after weeks in the hospital fighting for his life.
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At 33, he considered himself very healthy.
“I was weak. I went in probably weighing 220 and I went to 175. I’m like I’m damn close to my skin and bones,” he said. “I wouldn’t want this on anyone to go through what I went through,” he said.
Bornip and Maxwell said they were grateful because they know things might seem a lot worse to them, but they can’t help but wish their lives back to normal.
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