"Long Covid drove my wife to suicide. We must give others like her hope"

[Nevilledog]

Last edited Wed Jan 12, 2022, 06:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

David Roberts
@drvolts
·
Jan 12, 2022
It's head-spinning reading Covid news these days. On one side, people are saying, "oh we're all sick of restrictions, no one will put up with them any more, time to go back to normal." On the other side I'm reading about hospitals overflowing & ambulances being turned away.

David Roberts
@drvolts
And I'm reading about shit like this, which I find deeply & utterly terrifying.

Long Covid drove my wife to suicide. We must give others like her hope | Nick Güthe
The medical community must find answers for those suffering from long Covid. They are running out of time and hope
theguardian.com
11:46 AM · Jan 12, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/long-covid-wife-suicide-give-others-hope

My wife, Heidi, took her own life after a 13-month battle with long Covid that started as a mostly asymptomatic coronavirus infection. Long Covid took her from one of the healthiest, most vibrant people I’ve ever known to a person so debilitated that she could not bear another day on this planet.

I came home one day last May to find that she’d decided to end her pain. As our 13-year-old son waited outside for the paramedics, I tried desperately to revive her. I did a good enough job that by the time we got her to the hospital they could restart her heart, but she was brain dead on arrival. The emergency room doctor assumed that she died from depression. When I told him, “She wasn’t depressed, it was long Covid,” he looked at me with bewilderment and asked, “What’s long Covid?”

Late last night I got a desperate Twitter message from a man whose wife could be the next Heidi. She has long Covid and was threatening to end her life. She had already told their eight-year-old daughter her plan. I called him immediately. Heidi and his wife both suffered from unexplained neurological tremors and internal chest cavity vibrations so bad they lost the ability to sleep.

Like prisoners of war kept awake for days as a method of torture, their minds lost the ability to make sound cognitive decisions. I knew this man’s terror. Sadly, his call was not an anomaly. I have answered requests like his every single day since my wife’s obituary went viral and I began to share our story with the media.

*snip*


Edit to add quotation marks in title. Point well taken Hekate.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. Many in this country have decided this is an acceptable price to pay for getting "back to normal."

It's also an utterly unsurprising outcome, as our society likes to pretend none of us will become disabled at any point in our lives, and those who do somehow came by it through something the rest of us can avoid if we're smart or good enough.

[crickets]

2. Long COVID is one of the reasons why contracting even a "mild" case is scary.

My heart goes out to all of the people dealing with this.

[KS Toronado]

3. Yes, exactly.

[Rebl2]

8. I find

that frightening that even with mild Covid you can have after effects for months after.

[wnylib]

9. It's why I take no consolation

from reports that omicron is milder than other variants.

[childfreebychoice]

4. My condolences. What is really scary, md rethug gov hogan

Is letting nursing students take to the floor before completing course,same for respiratory therapists, gave them permission to work outside their scope of practice. Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't know about long haulers, either

[BeckyDem]

5. There are devastating issues with long covid and there is a great deal not yet understood.

Do we really benefit from saying a form of it is mild??


RIP that poor woman.

[dalton99a]

6. Kick

[leighbythesea2]

7. The tremor

& internal vibrations symptoms, have read about this.

Was intrigued because in late fall 2019 had developed a tremor. Couldnt sleep. Went on a desperate odyssey & by pure luck got a med that worked, march 6th.
January 17th, had gotten Covid. & the non-sleep with covid (didnt identify it then as such then) was incredible. I assumed my weeks & weeks of lack of sleep was just making this "flu"---the worst ever.
What a bunch of confusion.

Which was worse? The tremor/lack of sleep, of course. Thought my world, as i knew it, was over.
The long covid sounds so debilitating, am worried about this level of non-functioning. How will they navigate getting help, and being heard? I hope the medical field can find treatments/therapies.

[moreland01]

10. I just found out

that my 84 year old mother, who is in a rehab facility in Omaha, NE recovering from a small stroke, has Covid. She is vaxxed and boosted. The facility she is in tells us that as long as the people entering her room are vaxxed, they DON'T need to wear a mask.

So, they are letting unmasked people in the same room with patients recovering from a stroke.

It's Hillcrest Millard, for any of you living around Omaha.

[Demovictory9]

11. k&r

[liberalla]

12. So sad... I'd never heard of these internal chest cavity vibrations, strong enough to prevent sleep.

That would scare me. I feel for this family and any family that is suffering like this.

[Hekate]

13. "Please, please, please use quotation marks in post titles like this. I thought it was about you."

I put the title of this post inside quote marks to show they do show up. So many people don’t use them that I wonder if they know this.

[Nevilledog]

14. I usually try. This is a lazy Wednesday for me. I'll do better.

[Hekate]

17. It's endemic here, & not just you--just the first time I said something. Thank you for understanding.

[Nevilledog]

16. Pssst....edited to add them.

[Hekate]

18. Thanks!

[malaise]

15. This is frightening

Damn