Fighting COVID-19: A First-Person Report


Barb Zablotney was out of work for over three months as she battled the long-term effects of COVID-19.
Barb Zablotney was out of work for over three months as she battled the long-term effects of COVID-19.

“If I was forced to choose between breaking my back and going through SCI rehab or my fight with COVID, I would choose ‘broken back and SCI,’ because the pain and helplessness of COVID was much worse,” says Barb Zablotney, 35.

Zablotney, who is in her 13th year as an active T10 incomplete paraplegic, took COVID seriously. Besides her SCI, she has no other health conditions, so she continued working and doing her own grocery shopping while diligently wearing a mask and sanitizing her hands.

In early December, her 75-year-old father, a pharmacist with whom she shares a house, developed what he called “his usual winter cough.” Six days later, Zablotney woke up with severe back pain centered at her injury site. By mid-day her voice went hoarse.  Within hours she spiked a 99.8 temperature, became extremely nauseous and felt like she had been hit by a truck. “By evening I felt like somebody was sitting on my chest,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘I have frigging COVID.’ That night I struggled to breathe, and my chest felt extremely tight, similar to having a panic or anxiety attack, and I was having drenching hot and cold sweats and horrible ‘fever dreams’ that continued for about seven days.” A COVID test the following day confirmed she was positive.

By day three, her fatigue became so bad she couldn’t sit up in bed or transfer.

Around mid-day, her dad passed out at work due to low oxygen saturation and was rushed to the hospital. A test confirmed he had COVID.  “So here I am, three days into COVID, my dad is in the hospital, and I’m alone and so sick I can barely breathe or move. On day three I also lost my sense of taste and smell, which is scary because you can’t tell if food is bad, or smell if you may be starting a UTI.”

By day five, COVID was attacking and causing searing pain any place she had ever been injured, her shoulders, wrist, and neck muscles. Severe neuropathic pain manifested over her entire body. “It felt like my whole body was a giant bruise, on fire, with thousands of ants crawling on it,” she says. “It was pure torture and so bad that at night I’d be crying.”

Although she never developed a cough, on day 10 she was fighting for each breath and her pulse oxygen monitor read 89. Her brother rushed her to the ER. “After three hours of being treated like crap in a really ableist way, I was in so much pain and wasn’t getting anywhere, I checked myself out against medical orders,” she says.

By day 14, Zablotney’s symptoms started to wane. A second COVID test confirmed she was no longer contagious. It took another week to regain the strength to transfer in and out of her car.

Three months have passed since Zablotney came down with COVID, and she is still fighting symptoms including brain fog. “It is like somebody went into my brain and scrambled up my words — it’s difficult to find the word I want to say, and I will mix up my words and say ‘can’ when I mean ‘can’t,’” she says.

Her neuropathic pain hasn’t gone away but has decreased in intensity. She also still has a hoarse voice and lung issues that require steroids, an inhaler and six nebulizer treatments a day. “I still have a tight chest and shortness of breath and get winded really easily, even doing transfers,” she says. “And I’ve been out of work since December and am not cleared to return until the middle of April. The hardest part of getting through this has been the continuous pain as well as the fatigue and continued difficulty breathing.”


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