The vanguard
05/29/2020 - 13:20
- Clarín.com
- World
This pandemic of coronavirus has left countless victims. In the first place, obviously, there are the deceased and their relatives; also those who have required hospital admission, many of them in intensive care. But there is a group that is suffering the ravages of the disease and to which, surely, little attention has been paid . It is formed by people who, without a diagnostic test involved in many cases, have been with the symptoms associated with Covid-19 for months and who fear that its effects will become chronic.
Ermengol Gassiot (47 years old) developed a cough on March 14. Immediately all the alarms went off and he called the emergency: he had been in contact with three people from Conca d'Òdena, one of the outbreaks of Covid-19 in Catalonia, and some of them had already tested positive for coronavirus. "They told me to isolate myself." But the cough got worse with the passing of the hours. "I started having tenths of fever and shortness of breath . " On the morning of the 20th, he suffered severe coughing attacks that took him the following day to the hospital in Terrassa, the city where he lives.
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Watch the specialThere they made plates for him. "They informed me that they would do a PCR because the results of the test did not like them, but a few minutes later they told me that they had reviewed it again and that they were sending me home." The diagnosis? Nonspecific respiratory viral infection , without PCR involved.
At the end of March he had a glimpse of hope. The symptoms began to ease. “The cough was reduced a lot, I stopped having decimals, the feeling of suffocation diminished a lot and also the strange dryness in the mouth and throat that I had never experienced before. He was convinced that he had completed the cycle. I was five days quite well . " But it was a mirage.
The day she was to be discharged the cough reappeared , and her doctor did not want to give it to her. "I insisted a little because I have a son in joint custody and I had not seen him for three weeks. He told me not to speak. " That was the first regrowth. "Since then, I have not had such a sustained improvement as I had those five days."
Today, two and a half months after the appearance of the first symptoms, he continues to suffer from the effects associated with Covid-19, "which come and go ": "I can have four or five days with tenths of fever, then many others that do not ; the cough remains and there are days that it increases; I am always fatigued, although it allows me to do something. I could telework, but I can't stand three hours on the computer. ”
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A little over fifteen days ago, he called 911 again. “I had a bad cough again, I had chained five consecutive days with a fever… I wanted them to make something concrete for me. Generally, the slogan he received was 'patience' and one paracetamol every eight hours . ”
The surprise
The doctor who treated him explained that they could not do a PCR for two reasons: the first, because they had few ; and the second - “and it was the first time that they told me so frankly” -, because in a case like theirs it was not necessary to do it since, at the clinical level, the diagnosis left no room for doubt.
"A few days ago, I entered the CatSalut portal, where you can see your medical history, and I realized that it had been updated, diagnosing me as a Covid-19 patient since March 15."
Last week they performed a PCR, more than 70 days after the first symptoms appeared. It has given negative. "The doctor already warned me of the possible result because after so long the metabolism negativizes it."
Another case
The test was also negative in the case of Sílvia Soler (52 years old). "My doctor has told me that surely I have suffered from the disease, what happens is that the tests are being done at the wrong time ." On Monday of last week, May 18, they performed the PCR, although it carries the symptoms associated with Covid-19 since March 18.
In these almost two and a half months that she has been suffering from the effects of the disease, she has traveled to Viladecans hospital on three different occasions (she lives in Castelldefels). In the first, which took place on April 1, they detected " mild pneumonia in the left lung": "He had infiltrates in the lung, which determines the presence of the virus." They prescribed paracetamol to lower the fever, but they did not perform any PCR. "At those times, with the hospitals saturated, if you weren't bad enough, they would send you home ."
Like Ermengol, at one point, he also had the wrong feeling that he had completed the cycle. But the symptoms reappeared . "Every step you take seems like a victory, but then you fall back down the cliff."
To the list of symptoms that he has suffered, and that some of them still suffer, is infinite : “I have had suffocation, fever, muscle pain, lack of appetite, I lost smell and taste, I had conjunctivitis , allergy on my face (they appeared to me boqueras, which almost did not even let me eat), decomposition ... I had all the possible symptoms. They followed me up by phone, they didn't visit me. ”
Paracetamol based
He says that he was 18 consecutive days at 38 fever - "he appeared at night" - and 56 days in a row. “It is like a roller coaster, the symptoms persist. You spend a few days well but then they come back ”.
Although he defines himself as a "psychologically strong" person, he admits that the persistent effects of the disease are leaving their mark. “There are days when you feel good and you want to take advantage of it; of course, without spending too much energy, because maybe you need it tomorrow ”.
Despite the negative result of the diagnostic test, her doctor still had not discharged her. "Chronic fatigue, hoarseness and joint pain persist, do not stop, I carry a lot of pain in my right shoulder ."
She is convinced that "if the hospitals had not been so full", cases like hers would have ended up on admission, with which she understands that their health would have improved with the medication that they could have administered. She regrets that she has only been on paracetamol. "There was a time," he admits, "that I took azithromycin. It was prescribed to me by a friend of mine who is a doctor to avoid, she said, that a double pneumonia arose ".
Sílvia and Ermengol not only have in common the symptoms they suffer, both are going through this ordeal in solitude and, in addition, they are part, together with other patients, of the group of promoters of the Col·lectiu d'Afectades i Afectats Persistents per la Covid- 19, recently created. The platform already has more than 500 members.
“A few dates ago, I began to realize that there were people with the same symptoms as me. That reassured me, "explains Ermengol. “There comes a time that you do not know if you are imagining it or if you suffer from another pathology that they have not been able to detect. It confirmed to me that we are not imaginary sick people ”, he adds.
The members of this group assure that they have “become aware of the helplessness” with which they have “had to live”, and that now “that the collapse in hospitals is reduced”, it is the “time to define how cases such as theirs in which "the virus resists for months" and affects their "health and daily experience".
“Although we are not the serious cases that have marked the image of the disease, our reality is also part of this pathology and it would be good to study it. Above all, to find out if we are a danger in a de-escalation context like the current one ”, reflects Ermengol.
Those affected share the anguish for what this disease can cause them. “We do not know how it can affect our body. We do not know if it can harm organs such as the liver or kidneys, ”says Sílvia.
In their founding manifesto, they demand "an accurate follow-up of the cases of persistent symptoms of Covid-19 in order to know how many patients it affects and what its clinical evolution is."
They also ask for "the definition of medical and healthcare protocols, within the framework of the health and public system, for the sick and that it be the same for everyone and in all centers." Lastly, they request "that public health assume immediate diagnostic and serological tests." "Health is a universal right that cannot be abandoned by anyone," they recall.
Recently, they have sent a letter to the Minister of Health, Alba Vergés, where they set out their claims. So far, they say, they have not received a response.
By Josep Fita