New zest for life – only without parties: Annika Neidhardt suffered from Long Covid

Created: 03/23/2022, 18:30

By: Catherine Bromberger

Annika Neidhardt is standing happily on the summit, which she has always seen from the clinic.

In Oberammergau she found her happiness again.

© private

Annika Neidhardt came to Oberammergau as a heap of misery.

That's how the doctors described it.

Sad, angry, she couldn't remember anything, she didn't have the strength for everything.

Diagnosis: Long Covid.

After three weeks of therapy, she left the clinic a happy person with renewed courage.

But Corona has changed them.

Oberammergau – A friend calls.

Wouldn't Annika want to come along?

Go out with people a bit, have a drink.

To celebrate.

Have fun.

Under no circumstance.

Annika Neidhardt panics when she thinks of crowds.

She breaks out in a cold sweat, she imagines an evening at the local disco.

Meet up with some friends - okay.

As long as she can withdraw when the whole hustle and bustle gets too much for her.

Going out and partying – unimaginable.

"It worked for me.

I don't want to go anywhere anymore.” Says a young woman aged 23.

Annika Neidhardt falls ill with Corona: "Now I'm lying in the ambulance and try to breathe somehow"

Annika Neidhardt has been infected with the corona virus.

That, she says, did something to her.

mentally.

Not only because she was afraid of suffocating, she was in the hospital for a week and then she didn't have the strength to walk the dog in the garden - without crutches she would have collapsed.

That alone was bad, but the worst thing was: It didn't stop.

Not even weeks after the illness, when she was already back at work and trying to cope with everyday life.

"The moment never came when I could say: I'm fine." Annika Neidhardt fell ill with Long Covid.

Now she can say it again: she's fine.

After therapy in Oberammergau.

But she's not completely healthy yet.

And the fear of many people has remained.

As one of the first specialist clinics in Germany, the health center in Oberammergau developed a long-Covid program.

© Health Center Oberammergau

The 23-year-old was probably infected in spring 2021 at her little brother's birthday.

They were careful about it.

Only the closest family came, the two sisters, the mother.

Two days later "I thought I was going to die".

The quick test in the morning – positive.

"I panicked for a moment." But she gets really scared in the evening.

She spends the day on the couch, coughing.

On the way to the toilet she falls twice on the floor, her legs just give out.

Suddenly she can't breathe anymore.

"Full gasps." She calls her mother.

She finds her daughter, a young woman who had previously been healthy and had no previous illnesses, trying to force air into her lungs.

"I'm healthy," Neidhardt constantly thinks on the way to the hospital.

"Now I'm lying in the ambulance trying to breathe somehow."

After a week in the hospital: no strength to go into the house alone

She stays in the clinic in Kronach for a week, all day in this "shitty room".

All day she stares at its walls.

Watching TV is too exhausting, reading anyway.

She, who loves to eat so much, finds every meal just disgusting.

She loses six kilograms in the seven days during which even the walk from bed to the toilet is almost too far.

Washing your hair, showering – you don't have the strength for everything.

Nobody is allowed to visit her because of the Corona requirements.

Actually, Neidhardt likes to be alone, this week she often cries because of it.

It feels different.

Oppressive.

Lonely.

At least breathing works better.

You've had enough.

She wants to go home.

Neidhardt lives in Nordhalben in the Upper Franconian district of Kronach.

A place with around 1700 inhabitants, where everyone knows everyone.

The whole neighborhood knows that Corona brought "Annika" to the clinic.

When she arrives home in the ambulance, "it's a sensation".

Everyone stands at the window and waves.

“And I didn't have the strength to go to the front door myself.

So embarrassing."

Up the stairs to the second floor: the T-shirt is soaked with sweat

Neidhardt is slowly recovering.

After eight weeks she goes back to work, lunchtime care at the elementary school.

She only gets to the second floor with a break on the first.

Arrived at the top, the t-shirt is soaked with sweat on the back.

But what annoys her the most: "My brain." The 23-year-old can't concentrate on anything.

If someone tells her something, she has forgotten it ten seconds later.

If someone sends her shopping to bring apples, toothpaste, cheese and bread, she only packs the bread.

Maximum.

She doesn't know the rest.

Don't think about studying.

She wants to be a teacher, but she can’t hold out for any online seminars – because of Corona, everything is on the computer at the moment.

It takes an hour and a half, after ten minutes Neidhardt has to lie down.

Done.

That eats away at the psyche.

The young woman describes her condition as “almost depressed”.

"I was so angry at myself. Scared of myself.

That wasn't me anymore."

The doctors diagnose Long Covid, long-term consequences that can occur after a corona infection.

Your rehabilitation in Oberammergau is approved.

Three weeks of walking, breathing exercises, physiotherapy, talks.

As one of the first specialist clinics in Germany for rehabilitation in the fields of cardiology, pneumology and orthopedics, the health center launched a long-Covid program and developed a corresponding treatment concept.

Affected people from Germany have been treated since spring 2021, around 30 a month, they stay between three and four weeks.

The demand, says spokeswoman Lilo Brückner, is significantly greater today.

But more capacities do not remain in the house.

In July 2021, in addition to Neidhardt, two other women, in their early 40s and mid-30s, were in Oberammergau because of Long Covid.

Annika Neidhardt recovers step by step: Climbing stairs without gasping, a feeling of happiness

They shared their symptoms and problems in everyday life.

But the young woman does not particularly remember these conversations.

But to those with corona deniers.

The young woman spoke to a number of them.

When they heard her story, "their eyes widened."

Because they understood: This young woman is not there for fun, she has experienced what Corona means in some cases: that you can no longer do what you take for granted, that you lack the strength for everyday life.

With her story, Neidhardt wants to enlighten and shake people up a little.

Get people vaccinated too.

A chance she didn't have back then.

Step by step Neidhardt recovers in Oberammergau.

She starts cycling, Nordic walking, in the third week she can walk up the stairs herself again.

Since then she has experienced "a real feeling of happiness" when climbing stairs without gasping and breaking out in a sweat.

Sometimes she is so happy that she runs up the stairs at full speed.

After three weeks of rehabilitation in Oberammergau: "I'm going healthy"

"I'm healthy." That's how it felt for Annika Neidhardt when she drove home after three weeks.

Even if her head still wasn't working the way she was used to.

Sometimes she still can't think of words, and she has a hard time with names.

Nevertheless, from April she will start her studies again and also teach eleven hours at a secondary school.

For a long time she thought about whether she should take on this task.

"But my brain needs to be encouraged." That's why she's been writing a diary since rehab, noting what happened the day before, what she ate.

During her time in Oberammergau, she had no idea what lunch had been the day before.

Since her rehab, she has always come back, hiked to the Kofel and Laber, and found a friend there.

Oberammergau became a special place for them.

Because she rediscovered her zest for life there.

Even if it's different than before.

One without big parties.