When Kristin Giron Stewart was discharged from UPMC St. Margaret hospital after a 13-day battle with covid-19 over the summer, she thought she was well on her way to recovery.
The 47-year-old Lower Burrell woman grew frustrated and frightened as the days wore on, and she continued to struggle with a rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, brain fog and depression.
By mid-October, on medical leave from her job as a high school English teacher at Franklin Regional Senior High School, Stewart learned she was among the ranks of covid-19 patients known as long-haulers.
Experts estimate long-haulers — individuals who continue to suffer from an array of symptoms long after the disease has run its apparent course — comprise about 10% of those who have been infected with the virus.
In Stewart’s case, it was more than three months from the time she contracted covid-19 until she felt strong enough to return to school.
While many people recover from covid-19 relatively quickly, experts this spring began to notice a subset of patients who did not. They present with a variety of persistent conditions ranging from shortness of breath and heart palpitations to joint pain, extreme fatigue and neurological problems, among others.
Long-haul syndrome can last for weeks or months and has been known to attack those who had only mild symptoms of covid-19 and those who required weeks of inpatient treatment.
In recent months, the mysterious post-covid syndrome has spawned various blogs and Facebook groups in which thousands of survivors discuss their problems.
Stewart, who grew up in Hempfield, had no chronic health conditions before she tested positive for covid-19.
Her covid journey began in August. Following a car trip to Maine to visit her sister, Stewart, her husband, Chris, a high school civics teacher in Plum, and their children, 14-year-old Bella and 13-year-old Jake, all tested positive for coronavirus.
Chris and the couple’s teenage children experienced only mild symptoms.
That’s how things began for Stewart. She began to run a slight fever as her family headed home from Maine on Aug. 4.
“I slept the whole way home, and that’s a 12-hour drive,” she said.
Once home, her fever persisted. She had no appetite. Her fatigue was overwhelming.
When a friend called a week later and asked how she was, Stewart was honest. Her friend, a nurse, asked if she had a pulse oximeter to measure her blood oxygen saturation.
“She told me she would send one over with her husband and asked me to take a picture of it. When I told her it was 58, she told me to call an ambulance right away,” Stewart said.
Although blood oxygen levels can vary from 75 to 100 throughout the day, doctors consider 95 to 100 to be normal. Anything below 60 is considered dangerous. Oxygen-deprived organs can begin to shut down and cognition is affected as oxygen-starved brain cells struggle to function.
Doctors put Stewart on oxygen. Two days later, when her doctor suggested she be placed on a ventilator, Stewart balked.
“I thought of Chris and my family. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up again if they did that,” she said.
Her respiratory therapist and nurse went to bat for Stewart. They eventually prevailed with a plan to place Stewart on her belly while she was treated with remdesivir, convalescent plasma and steroids. Finally, her condition began to improve.
When she was discharged, Stewart found any movement at all would leave her winded and exhausted.
“It took me 40 minutes just to go upstairs to go to bed,” Stewart said. “My oxygen would drop to the 70s. I’d have to sit down at the top of the steps and rest. And my heart rate was through the roof. It was 130 when I was sitting sometimes.”
Eventually, her hair began to break and fall out.
Doctors couldn’t tell Stewart why her recovery was taking so long — that’s the mystery of long-haul syndrome. But, after tests ruled out other issues, they attributed her hair loss to the trauma and stress of dealing with covid-19.
Restless and confined to her home for weeks during her recovery, Stewart, who was a reporter for the Tribune-Review before moving to teaching 19 years ago, dusted off her research skills. She quickly learned she was not alone. There were thousands of other long-haulers looking for answers.
By early December, just as Stewart returned to the classroom, the National Institutes of Health convened the first national workshop to shine a light on what some had earlier dismissed.
The New York Times quoted Dr. Anthony Fauci’s comments to experts assembled for the conference that long-haul syndrome is real and merits serious study.
Stewart said she went public with her condition, posting about it online in October in the hopes that others experiencing continuing issues would know they were not alone.
Today, her energy level is improving. Her hair is growing back, and there are just a couple of thin spots she carefully hides when she styles it.
She was thrilled to get back in her classroom Dec. 2. “I never thought I’d be out that long,” she said.
When she returned, Stewart shared her story with her students. She told them how careful she had been, that she wore a mask anytime she went anywhere, that she knows of no one she was in contact with who had the virus, that lingering symptoms of covid-19’s long-haul syndrome can continue to hang on for weeks after the virus has waned.
“I told them how important it was that you do wear a mask covering your mouth and your nose. … They’ve been really good,” she said.
Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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