Patient Perspectives: What it means to be a COVID-19 long-hauler

I don't know if any of the other long haulers on this call feel emotional hearing everybody else's stories.

I certainly do because we've all gone through such a hellish experience. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Nice to meet all of you guys, and thanks for joining today. So I'm Christian Sandrock. I'm actually a pulmonary critical care and infectious disease physician at the University

of California Davis. I was hoping to slow my life down. But unfortunately SARS-CoV-2 came along and accelerated everything.

We had a number of patients who came down with an acute infection with SARS-CoV-2. And then we noticed that we had patients

having prolonged symptoms. So a little over a year ago in May of 2020, we decided to open up a clinic to manage

these patients and the wide variety of symptoms that we were seeing. I'd like to hear a little bit about what was going on before you got sick and then obviously once you

got sick. What happened for you from testing and symptoms and so forth? Before I got sick right before COVID really became big,

I was actually in Europe. And so we were hearing about COVID way before the states because that's how it spread from East to West.

So I got ill March. Two weeks after getting back from Europe, I was super sick.

And then roughly three days later, it felt like an elephant had sat on my chest.

Probably, you know, Dan I wanted to transition to you because, around the same time I think in March 2020, you said you also got sick. Just kind of going back a little bit in November,

I had gotten really sick, and I didn't know what it was. What I had was a really severe ear infection.

And then at the beginning of March, I was just finally starting to feel better. And I remember specifically the week in March,

everything had just shut down in the US. I came home that Sunday, and I just went to bed.

And I had no more energy. And when I woke up the next morning, Monday morning, I felt sick like I'd never felt sick before.

I was very fatigued. I had a high fever. And I couldn't keep food or water down.

So by the fourth day, I had basically just collapsed on the floor trying to get from the bed to the bathroom. And my wife said, you can't stay here.

She finally got me admitted to the hospital. But the next morning, my heart monitor went crazy.

And so out of nowhere, like a team of doctors and nurses and things rushed in the room with crash carts and paddles

and stuff like that. And I'm like, what's going on? Do you have the right room? They're like, oh my God, he's still conscious.

And that's when they finally decided that I actually needed to stay in the hospital. And Jeanette, I wanted to hear-- I think, you know, you also got sick in March of 2020.

I was around a patient at work that had came in, one of my regulars. And he had said that he had just traveled

to New York City, which was a hotspot in mid-March. So I kind of joked leaving work that day. If you guys don't see me in five days, you know what happened.

And five days later, everything shut down across the country. And my temperature was elevated but only like 99.3.

A day and a half later, I couldn't complete a sentence. I was getting short of breath. So I've been through the entire work up with--

I think I just counted yesterday I'm onto my 16th specialist. Started having some heart issues in, I want to say,

mid-June, early July. And my heart rate was jumping to 200, 212 beats per minute just running up one flight of stairs.

So who I was before, I'm no longer that person. I was able to schedule an appointment

with Northwestern in Chicago. They ran a couple of general, neurologic exams, like the--

I had one quarter recall. So my memory is not doing great.

But they got a plan of care and sent me away with it to take back to my primary care provider,

and we've been chipping away at it since then. And then lastly, Ibrahim, I don't mean ignore you. So we'd love to hear a little bit about your stories, what

you went through, you know, what's going on for you now as well similar to Jeanette. The first week of November, I got COVID.

My initial symptoms, you know, fever, difficulty breathing,

tightness in the chest, like knee pain-- that kind of stuff. I would wake up at night gasping for air.

I would have heart palpitations. I couldn't really read or think or do much. I have gone to the ER twice.

I have done so many tests. After I got the Pfizer vaccine in April, like that stuff stopped.

And I was like, oh, cool, I guess I'm done. You know, I know like, in some instances, like the vaccines have been able to alleviate

symptoms is why everyone should be getting vaccinated. It's really important. Suddenly, first week of May, it was a really nice day

here in Chicago. We don't really get nice, sunny days, but we got one. And I just went outside, and I was lying down

underneath a tree reading a book. And then when I tried to get up, I couldn't get up.

But I ended up crawling actually like on all fours with like my backpack and everything, crawling back to my apartment.

Three months later or so, like I can walk again. You know, weird, confusing time. And in this time, I've done a bunch of MRIs and EMGs

and spoke to a lot of specialists. And everyone's like, dude, you're totally fine. Thank you for all sharing. It's a lot, and it's emotional.

And you guys have all been through a lot, and so thanks for your time.