Long covid. “We are broken, forgotten”. Pauline’s painful battle

In a few days, Pauline will celebrate a funny birthday. In early March 2024, it will have been four years since she caught Covid. It was even before the imprisonment, the mask… She was first sick and since then she fought against the pain and everything that came from it, the impossibility of working, the administrative difficulties.

“Sometimes I’m fine. Sometimes I’m not fine. Sometimes I cry. It’s been four years since we’ve been together.” Pauline begins.

In a few days, he will celebrate four years of prolonged covid. “That’s not a very happy birthday.” She believes. She fell ill before the speech of the President of the Republic on March 16, 2020. We didn’t know the disease well yet.

“I was sleeping, not well at all, but we didn’t know what it was.” she recalls. From the beginning, she had major respiratory problems and especially neurological problems. “At first the doctor thought it was the fever that was making me delirious.” But the girl seemed to have gone off track. “I would get lost in the apartment, go to eat and go to the bathroom. I wondered what was happening to me. I could do the same thing two or three times, without realizing it. she recalls. When I got somewhere, I didn’t know what I came there to do.”

On March 17, 2020, the day after the announcement of Emmanuel Macron’s imprisonment, the doctor diagnosed: Covid. “it will be alright It reassures, In seven days, it’s over.”

I was so bad that I didn’t even panic

“I was so bad I didn’t even panic,” Describes Pauline. Today, she admitted that she was in so much pain that she considered jumping out of a window. I thought I was going to die.

But days pass and Pauline is still in her bed. During the first week, she slept 20 hours a day. She was so tired that she could not even cut a piece of ham.

to read : Chronic covid. Awareness day. “For three years, my life has stopped”

“I was terrified because I found I couldn’t think anymore” she describes. At age 40, Pauline can no longer count and can no longer read. “I read the same sentence several times in a row without understanding what it meant. I had a first grade level” She sighed.

When doctors send her for an IQ test, she, whose intelligence was above average, finds herself with disastrous results.

I remember, I was asked: What is five multiplied by zero? I started crying because I didn’t know. I was shown images of animals, I couldn’t say, “That’s an elephant”, “That’s a lion”.

Pauline hurts everywhere. Every muscle, every joint aches. She has heart and digestive problems. Kovid caught him. “I don’t think I have a single organ that hasn’t been affected” The young woman sighs. She has cysts all over her body, suffers from vision and hearing problems. And no more antibodies. In June 2020, it was his rheumatologist who told him it was probably prolonged covid. But no one knows what this will mean for the coming months.

2020, 2021, for me, those years didn’t exist

“2020, 2021, for me, those years didn’t exist” sums up Pauline

“I am 42 years old, She smiled and said, Not 44 because those two years were stolen from me. I don’t remember what I did. My brain was no longer able to do anything but stare at the ceiling.”

“Before, I had a job, I was normal, and there, “no more sound, no more image”. There is a problem” She worries. And then one day, she’s talking to her sister, and she realizes that she can’t remember her father’s first name. “It was horrible, I really cried, really, really scared.”

to read : They had covid 9 months ago and no end in sight. Testimonials.

Since the onset of her illness, Pauline can no longer work. But today, she is no longer entitled to sick leave. It is not valid, neither in long-term illness nor in disability. “We Told me that my illness was so random, it was violentshe declares. I did not want this disease. I was not a dangerous person, I was sporty, active…”

Pauline now lives on a disabled adult allowance of 900 euros per month.

“There are sick people in the association who have been forced to sell their homes due to illness and no longer have a salary.” she testifies.

“I am not an isolated case, and it is sad. There is an association, Après J20, and we have a mutual support group in Rennes, we meet from time to time to drink coffee and chat. Today, in Rennes, there are about a hundred of us. Primarily first covid patients, Pauline explains, We say the first variant was really strong, but we also have a lot of patients from 2021 and others from 2022, 2023.”

In France, according to a study conducted by Sainte-Publique France between March and April 2022, about 2 million people over the age of 18 suffer or suffer from chronic covid to varying degrees.

“We are broken, forgotten, Pauline laments. “In some countries, the support exists. In Germany, not a month goes by without the ministers talking about the long covid. There, they put money into research… Here, we feel that we are not the priority, that there is always something more important. . than us.”

“There are people who are suffering so much today that they are thinking of going to Switzerland and euthanasia.”

“We are told to wait, but what are we waiting for? Covid is still here, soon. Pauline laments, We will have covid patients during 2024.“

To continue the daily battle against pain and hardship, Pauline and the other patients need help and hope.