-I remember calling my best friend saying,
"Girl, I'm negative. I'm negative."
And she was like, "That's good."
And I said to her, I said, "But you know,
I still feel like shit.
I can't go back to work this way.
Like, I can't get over this feeling of, like, malaise.
I feel like I've been run over by, like, 10 Mack trucks.
I cannot get over this feeling.
If it's negative and everything's all good,
why don't I feel better?"
And we couldn't answer that question.
And we haven't been able to ever since.
-A little after Valentine's Day, um,
is when I really started to feel just not like myself.
I felt as if my throat was closing up on me,
and that was --
Now I know it to be called the COVID strangle.
And I was like, "am I allergic to something all of a sudden?"
And that was -- it was terrifying.
-There was this crushing fatigue.
Every moment I could get, I was closing my eyes.
It was just almost like a ghost
was like, okay, inhabiting my body.
"Okay, go to sleep." I was always going to sleep.
-Woke up with a rash, chills, lost my sense of smell.
-I had completely started to shut people out
because I was embarrassed about being very sick.
I was too weak to have phone conversations.
-I lost my vision in my left eye back in April.
I've had gastric issues.
I've had gynecological issues.
My arm went numb for half and hour.
I started to have icepick headaches.
Throw all the symptoms into a bag
and pull them out each day.
There could be 60, 70 of them,
and you could have four on a Monday.
By Tuesday, you'll have 20 of them.
And you're like, "what is my body doing?
What's happening?
-Over the course of six months, I've gone to the emergency room
probably about 12 or 13 times.
I can't remember who invited to this Facebook group called
"Long Haul COVID Fighters - Round 1."
-I requested to join, and not long after that, I was accepted.
-And, so, I'm reading through some of the comments
and some of the threads,
and these people are singing my song.
-I cried, brawled. I cried for a while.
-I was just so happy to find people who were like me.
I needed that.
I just remember feeling overwhelmed
but, yet, grateful, relieved
that finally this has to explain it.
-Kimmy is very smart, and she and I bonded
because we, still to this day,
keep getting the same head pressure.
-She was asking lots of questions
about neurological things
and the headaches and it sounded really similar to my issues.
And I was like. -Oh, girl, yes.
Girl, yes. That's me, right?
And so I remember commenting on her post.
-She was on a mission early on and being very open.
And I appreciate that. -To sit on a Facebook platform
and talk to people about shortness of breath
and crazy periods and all this stuff,
and you bond that way,
you realize how much you actually have in common.
I'm so grateful for that.
We have shared so much in that group.
There's nothing that's off limits.
And, so, while the doctors are scurrying to gather information,
and there are some of them who are really trying, I can tell.
They just don't have answers.
-I will never give a doctor that much power
and will over me ever again.
Because I remember wanting to so badly to believe
what he was saying to me
and taking what he said as if it were the Bible or law.
-Not knowing what it's going to do in the future is daunting.
But I have not allowed myself to, in times, to focus on that.
-I do not know if I will --
if I am developing chronic fatigue syndrome.
I do not know if my brain will ever work again
the way that it did before.
I don't know if I'll be able to teach kids
in the same capacity that I did.
And I -- if I let myself think about that for too long,
that devastates me.