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“Today is day 464,” says Patrick Malia.
Malia, 38, is emerging from a Father’s Day that has been flanked by months of long-term COVID symptoms.
“My five-year-old is particularly worried. His biggest worry is that dad is going to die,” he said.
The transition from a healthy state to a chronically unhealthy state is frightening. Long-haul COVID is associated with a higher risk of death. And like so many others, Malia wants to get back to something close to normal.
His days went from running between jobs, going to school and caring for two young children … to chest pain, shortness of breath and sleeping 14 to 16 hours at a time.
Finding out why he’s not getting better has been a struggle.
“I’ve seen every kind of specialist imaginable, and everyone’s like, ‘I don’t know what to do with you.’ So that was the hardest part, ”he told Newsy.
“We haven’t really focused a lot of medication and care on this long-haul population,” Dr. Charles Davidson told Newsy.
Davidson oversees the Comprehensive COVID-19 Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago.
The second in the United States, it opened in December 2020.
So far, they have seen over 1,100 patients, and hundreds more are trying to enter. Currently, it takes one to three months to get an appointment.
Lindsey Theis: “Tell me a little about the patients you see now.”
Davidson: “Only 14-15% of them have actually been hospitalized. Two-thirds are women and the average age is under 50.”
What makes these comprehensive clinics different? Here, a patient is assessed and his case examined by a whole team of specialists according to his symptoms: from from lungs to brain, heart to kidneys, blood to mental health.
But full COVID centers like the one at the Northwestern Memorial in Chicago are rare.
“There are about 40 centers like this right now. I think it’s difficult for patients to find these centers. There are a lot of places that appear, but a lot of them have a lung clinic, or they have a neurology clinic, but they don’t necessarily work together, ”Davidson said.
“The standards of care for long-distance COVID patients are definitely lacking at this point because we know so little,” said Dr. Marc Sala, pulmonologist at the CCC at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Sala sees patients like Patrick Malia with; he said, brain fog. Sometimes lasting nine months or more. His biggest frustration: that he couldn’t give better answers.
Right now, all they can do is look at all the symptoms and patterns in the patients, and try drugs commonly used for other illnesses. And a lot of testing to make sure there isn’t something worse and worse. The important thing here is to let patients know be patient.
“There is hope that people who have had COVID for a long time will feel better. For many people, it takes a very long time. However, I do not I have a lot of patients who are not getting better, and that gives me a lot of hope, ”said Sala.
For Malia, it made all the difference. He knows there is a long way to go. But now, knowing this, he has a new optimism.
“I got good information, I have a plan of action, things like that. And it really helped me,” he said.
Lindsey Theis of Newsy first reported this story.
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