NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – It’s been nine months since teenager Haley Nelson contracted COVID-19. Confined to a bed for over two weeks, she calls her initial battle with the virus “the worst experience of [her] life.”
"After I first got sick in the summer was probably the most terrifying experience of my life," said Nelson, who had brain fog and fatigue. "I felt sick in ways I couldn't explain, I couldn't retain any information."
But it’s still not over.
The 18-year-old from the Jersey Shore is dealing with what experts call “long COVID”, which the CDC defines as a range of symptoms that can last weeks or months after first being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 or can appear weeks after infection.
Serious and disturbing, the symptoms can come and go with no warning.
On this episode of WCBS 880’s In Depth Podcast, we sit with Haley to discuss her experience thus far, and whether or not she sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
We also speak with Dr. Larry Kleinman, a physician at New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who has been studying long COVID in kids and will soon be recruiting patients for a new research project.
“We're trying to do several distinct things in the study,” Kleinman tells 880’s Peter Haskell. “One is to understand how frequently long COVID complicates COVID infections.”
“There's so much we don't know,” Kleinman addes , “[And] far less than that I wish we did at this point.”
Related
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram