A woman in the UK was treated at the Arrowe Park Hospital in April after she got infected by the Coronavirus. But the 32-year-old mother of two is still suffering strange side-effects months after she left fighting for her life in the intensive care unit with COVID-19.
The UK woman, Toni Francom, who has underlying health conditions, never felt better after she left the hospital. She was fighting for life for seven weeks in hospital, but now, she was left with lung damage, a heart defect, missing smell, strange smells, chronic fatigue, and also asthma. Francom said "I am always out of breath and have had repeated chest infections, leading to multiple hospital stays. COVID-19 is the devil."
Suffering Has Not Ended Yet
Francom, from Woodchurch, has two children—12-year-old Lewis and seven-year-old Rose—who both have special needs. She missed their birthdays this year as Francom was receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19.
But she is not alone in this long COVID journey as thousands of Brits have also reported the continuous sufferings after contracting the virus. In some of these cases, people thought that they had made a recovery but then the symptoms re-appeared.
A 56 -year-old woman, Marie Flynn, who was seriously ill due to the COVID-19 in March is now a long COVID sufferer. She has been noticing tiredness and painful joints and numbness in the fingers. "Sadly, I have it again six months on and 10 times worse. My joints are so painful, with headaches constantly. I've no energy at all. Just walking the stairs I have to stop halfway," said Flynn.
Recently a 47-year-old man, Roehl Ribaya, who was the last patient to leave Blackpool Victoria Hospital's ICU after being treated for the Coronavirus infection in July, died of long COVID. On October 13, the Filipino aerospace engineer had a cardiac arrest and after that, he was in a coma until he died two days later.
However, as per the researchers from the King's College London, long COVID seems to affect women more than men. As per Dr. Claire Steves, who was part of the long COVID research said, "We have seen from the early data coming out that men were at much more risk of very severe disease and sadly of dying from COVID-19, it appears that women are more at risk of long COVID."
