Before coronavirus, Jennifer Gansler was the kind of person who set her alarm at 4 a.m. so she could start her day with a 5 a.m. run.
A self-described “super-active, outdoors-y person,” Gansler spent a week hiking the Porcupine Mountains last summer and ran the Chicago Marathon in October.
She was someone who shrugged off her daily two-hour round-trip commute to Michigan State University, where she works as an academic advisor. And even after a long work day, Gansler still would have energy for an evening hike with her husband; quality time with her 12-year-old son; staying in touch with her six older children who no longer live at home.
That was before coronavirus.
The first week of March, Gansler went to Spain to connect with MSU students in study-abroad programs.
She fell ill on March 11, three days after returning from Spain and a day after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that Michigan had confirmed its first two cases of coronavirus. Spain became a coronavirus hot spots while she was there, and the timing seems likely that she was among Americans infected in Europe.
A 51-year-old with “zero” underlying health conditions, Gansler had what clinicians would term a milder case of COVID-19. Although she went to a hospital emergency department twice for breathing problems, she was never hospitalized and she isolated herself at home to recover.
But from the start, that recovery has been shockingly slow.
“I just wasn’t getting better,” she said. “There were days I would gradually feel better, and then I would just fall really sick again.”
Almost five months after she first became ill, Gansler said she’s now “maybe 30% of where I used to be.”
Her worst symptom is crushing fatigue, she said. She also still has a cough. Still has tightness in her chest.
“I have a stiff neck, which is crazy -- like really sore stiff neck all the time,” she said. “And hair loss. Just massive hair loss.
“Those are daily symptoms,” Gansler said. “If I do too much, I end up back in bed.”
She calls herself a “COVID long hauler,” part of the growing number of people struggling to recover as evidence builds that coronavirus can result in long-term health problems, even in people with mild cases.
“I started kind of reaching out to see who else is out there, and I started connecting” online to others with similar experiences, Gansler said. “There’s a whole lot of people that had had COVID but just aren’t getting better.”
Experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are now talking about “this kind post-COVID syndrome,” Gansler said. “There’s recognition that something is going on, and they’re talking about that it impacts 10% of the people who contract COVID.”
With about 4.8 million diagnosed COVID cases in the U.S., that potentially means almost 500,000 people so far could be having post-COVID complications. And that could be a conservative estimate, based on several new studies.
“There are a number of studies now starting to look at the people who are recovering from coronavirus,” said Dr. William Sims, an infectious disease specialist for Beaumont Health in metro Detroit. “One that just came out said when they looked at all their patients an average of 60 days out, only about 13% of them had no symptoms at all.”
A new study published July 25 in the JAMA Cardiology Journal found that 78% of recovered COVID-19 patients had permanent heart damage. The majority of the 100 patients in the study had not been hospitalized.
It’s not just cardiac issues. The long-term impacts from COVID-19 are a lengthy and varied list, and include fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, blood clots and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain.
Whitmer even acknowledged the issue at Wednesday’s press briefing as part of her warning about COVID-19 risks.
“Even though our recent numbers of deaths are low, we’re still learning every day about new research on the long-term health impacts of COVID-19,” Whitmer said. “So this means anyone, including young people, can have long-term brain and heart damage, so please do not think that you are invincible.”
Gansler says her own story has been a wake-up call for her friends and family.
“For a lot of people, I’m now the example they use” of the seriousness of the virus, Gansler said. “They’re, like, ‘She had no pre-existing conditions. I ran with her all the time. But she got COVID and months later, she’s still not recovered.’ So I’m the poster child.”
Gansler said she’s been seeing various specialists, but COVID is so new that doctors don’t know what to do with patients like herself. “For most doctors, I’m the first person they’ve ever worked with that has had COVID, and they have no information or no way of treating me,” she said.
Meanwhile, Gansler is learning to live with her new limitations. Her diminished energy means there are no more morning runs or evening hikes. It helps that she now works remotely, she says, because it’s eliminated her long commute and she can arrange her student appointments to allow for a quick mid-day nap to make it through the workday.
“I have learned to consider and measure everything I do before I do it to make sure I don’t do too much,” Gansler said. “Like if I’ve been up and down the stairs already once in a day, I will send my son down to get the laundry out of the dryer.”
She feels she’s become “much less reliable” as a parent, spouse, friend and employee, saying she often has to readjust her schedule because she’s not feeling well.
To add to her stress, her mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, and because of the pandemic, her treatment was delayed and she ended up dying.
“My life has been impacted in so many ways by COVID,” Gansler said. “I see people who are lucky enough not to be touched by this virus. But instead of feeling grateful, they feel victimized by having to wear a mask.”
Gansler said she tries to “stay positive through this, take things day by day and focus on the things I can do instead of worrying about everything I can’t.”
But it’s hard, especially when it’s unclear if her symptoms are temporary or permanent.
“I don’t know how long this will last and if I will ever be back to 100%,” she said.
COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS:
In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.
Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.
Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nosewhile in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here.
Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.
For more data on COVID-19 in Michigan, visit https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/data/.
Read more on MLive:
How accurate is Michigan’s COVID-19 death total?
‘Are masks bad for your health?,’ plus 8 other coronavirus myths and truths
Latest on coronavirus antibodies and immunity: What we know and what we don’t at this point
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