‘It shouldn’t be this hard to survive’: 28-year-old talks life as a COVID long-hauler l GMA

it shouldn't be this hard to just survive it's really scary not feeling safe in your own body i was at the peak of my health and in the best shape of my life before i got sick [Music] march 13th 2020 till now i've been dealing with debilitating long coved experiencing really bad waves of fatigue hard open my eyes talk to breathe even this virus doesn't matter your age it doesn't matter your previous health it doesn't matter any underlying conditions it doesn't discriminate i'm not one case i'm not two cases i'm not a rare case there are tens of thousands of people in this situation and that number grows every day today was a very very bad day i wasn't doing anything before to put me in that state barely set up without being super dizzy and lightheaded and really disoriented my brain fog is incredibly bad my fatigue is bad it's paralysis like completely drains you to the point where the only thing you can do is just wait for it to pass two to three weeks before my initial onset symptoms of coven 19 i was in the best shape of my life for sure i was doing bodybuilder style workouts about four to five days a week i was always outside running hiking all in all i had over 50 symptoms like the cdc said in the beginning i was expecting two weeks and i'd be okay but things just never got better my chest pain grew worse started having tachycardia my increased heart rate intense brain fog to the point where i couldn't have a coherent conversation i would forget what i was saying in the middle of a sentence we prefer now to use more post acute sequelae of sequelae of covet and how to define it is just the most tricky part of all this [Music] this is my oximeter i use it to take my oxygen levels and my heart rate you can see my oxygens of 97 my heart rate just for brushing my teeth is 154. my body thinks i'm running a marathon right now when all i'm doing is standing upright and brushing my teeth [Music] pots again was very bad i would stand up and just simply from standing my heart rate would go into the 140s and 150s my master activation syndrome my allergic reactions were so bad i got to the point where i wasn't able to eat any food i was only able to drink water it led to me losing 33 pounds in a couple months having allergic reactions every time i try to eat [Music] and i'm really frustrated it shouldn't be this hard it shouldn't be this hard to just survive my muscles atrophied completely i wasn't able to do much walking getting up the stairs there were nights where i had to be physically carried up the stairs [Music] with pots there is no cure there's no medication i can take that's gonna magically make me better [Music] my body's fighting so many different battles on a daily basis i've gotten to the point where i'm eating about five different foods but that's all i can eat and if i don't have proper nutrition to be able to fight those battles i'm not going to be able to fight and i'm just going to continue to deteriorate i give more weight away 125 now hold her back up right now she's fought through everything that they've thrown at her she has down days but she bounces back fact that i'm gaining weight my body's gaining nutrients i'm putting more weight on means i'm winning i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel it's far away and i have a lot of work to do but it's there i can actually see it now instead of the darkness that i was in before some days it's really hard that's when you really have to dig deep and just think of okay well what am i grateful for and i'm grateful for my niece and nephew it's the little things that you really have to dig deeply like okay these are the people i want to live for and you kind of just have to shift your mindset like i will do this i'm going to do this i don't know how i'm going to get there or when i'm going to get there but i will do it it takes a lot out of you mentally just to keep going and to have that push and that drive to want to keep going when things seem so bad for so so long i've never thought i could do what i've done and i'm super proud of myself so i was just able to shower sitting up by myself for the first time in a really long time and then i also blow dry my hair and i straightened it all by myself i crashed a little bit after but that's okay and this just means i'm headed in the right direction so yay [Music] well hey there gma fans robin roberts here thanks for checking out our youtube channel lots of great stuff here so go on click the subscribe button right over right over here to get more of awesome videos and content from gma every day anytime we thank you for watching and we'll see you in the morning on gma

Channel: Good Morning America

Views: 122,197

Keywords: Jersey, New, Nicole, Wahler, abc, abcnews, chronic, covid-19, former, health, illness, lifting, muscle, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-83384631, science, teacher, weight

Id: kVViyGpa4kc

Length: 6min 52sec (412 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022