Post COVID or long hauler?

After my last update, I had another relapse or scare covid related. On Thursday I started having symptoms again, low grade fever, fatigue, fast heart rate with movement, and chest discomfort. Not every day nor all of them at the once, but it seemed to deteriorate day by day with few moments of normalcy. Friday afternoon I was actually feeling better, normal, after talking to a pulmonary doctor that sees post covid patient, I was hopeful that I was on the way to recovery. Then Saturday I woke up super hopeful it was going to be a good day. I felt fine, normal, energetic. I went out for a walk while Sofia run and we went to buy bread for breakfast. It was probably 1 hr walk in total, once home I did 30 min pilates and felt good. Not shortly after that, I went to groceries store with hubby. probably was 10am then I started to feel tired, and some chest tightness. I thought maybe I over did it thus decided to take easy once I got home. But the discomfort got worse by hour, after lunch, my chest tightness was maybe 6 out of 10 in intensity and my heart rate was racing and pounding. I couldn’t even talk much as it would make me super tired and racing hearts. After 30 min of trying to calm myself down and not seeing progress, I told hubby that let’s go to the ER. I seriously thought I was having a heart attack, which compounded by panic.

I was afraid that I would have to wait hours to be admitted. Fortunately after I told the triage nurse that I was having chest tightness and racing heart (130 after walking 50 meter), she took me in right away to do a ECG, I assume to check if I was indeed having a heart attack. Then afterwards, I waited 15 min outside and they allowed me to go to ER extension service for chest discomfort. Once there, I felt a bit calmer, I was already in the right place, if anything happens, I would get help. The chest pain/heart center was empty so I was checked by the nurse right away who talked to the doctor over the phone. The doc came few minutes later, checked my ECG and said that it looks fine but will do some test to see what’s causing the palpitation and chest tightness. Blood test for blood clot, heart failures, infection, were ordered. ECG, chest X-ray, and heart ultrasound also ordered. I was super grateful how caring the nurses were, I was put on a bed and wheel chair to different places for test.

By 4pm, two hours after I got to the ER, I was calmer and basically just wait for the results. My HR then went down to 70-80s, I was still tired with movement, chest tightness improved a bit but still felt tight.

6pm the doctor came to give me the results, blood ok, x-ray ok, ECG ok, the only pending was the heart ultrasound that takes 2-3 days for the results. He offered me to stay over night for observation to catch next time this happens. I asked him if there’s any indication of problem from the test he saw so far and he said no. So I decided to go home. I was worried that me staying will worry my girls.

Once home, I rest as I was still feeling very tired. Went to bed 8pm and fell deep sleep right after.

Sunday was rather a good day. My energy level was okay, low grade fever was present most of the day but minimal (98.8). I was just very intrigued and worried why it’s taking so long to recover. I was worried that I had some physiological scarring from COVID that causes all these but so far we haven’t found one. Long covid seems to apply for post covid patient of over 12 weeks, so I’m not there yet. However, I don’t see much progress either. I didn’t have chest tightness the first two weeks, it was only this week that I felt it. So it seems this is new symptom.

While I am frustrated, I try to remain hopeful. I know deep down that there will be an end to this, it’s just the uncertainty of its duration that is hard to digest. Also, I keep wondering if I”m doing something wrong to delay recovery time. Am I doing too much too fast? Maybe. So for this week, I’ll take it slow and do little, see if it happens again, before increase it next week. I don’t know if this approach will work, but it’s clear that what I did before (do more when I felt good) was not working, so I need to be flexible and try a different approach.

More families that we know have kids with symptoms. not all of them got tested but with the current rate of infection in our building, everyone just assume it’s covid. So the girls are not playing with other kids, which is hard on them. We try to make it fun despite all what’s happening but this is the time to be cautious given what Covid does to me, I really want them to remain covid free if possible.

New week, new hope, new plan. I will remain hopeful or try to.