This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. (SOUNDBITE OF CHASTITY BELT SONG, "DIFFERENT NOW")Ĭopyright © 2020 NPR. HAMILTON: So no karaoke clubs yet, but they're all closed anyway. ROBERTSON: I think the only thing that still hasn't properly recovered is the vocal range of my voice. HAMILTON: Six weeks later, though, he's pretty much back to normal. MATTHEW ROBERTSON: I got to the hospital on February 29, and then when I woke up, I was looking at the date on the chart that was on my window. He's a tech worker who lives near Seattle. HAMILTON: Bellinghausen says COVID-19 survivors do improve over time, and a few bounce back quickly. And if someone resists, they may be forcibly restrained.īELLINGHAUSEN: They really think that all these efforts that we're doing in the ICU to try to save their life may be trying to harm them, and so people come out of the ICU with pretty profound symptoms of PTSD sometimes - post-traumatic stress disorder. Bellinghausen says patients who may be delirious from fever or sedatives find themselves trapped in a scary, noisy place, connected to machines that have taken control of their bodily functions. HAMILTON: Then there's the emotional impact. The other thing is that patients who have bad lung disease often have times when their oxygen level is very low, and that also causes damage to the brain. HAMILTON: Including the brain - Bellinghausen says one reason is the drugs used to paralyze and sedate patients while they're on a ventilator.īELLINGHAUSEN: Some of those medications can have long-lasting impact on the brain. Sometimes kidneys are impacted, but really, any organ can suffer injury in the ICU. HAMILTON: And for many, she says, there's been organ damage.īELLINGHAUSEN: People can have injuries to their lungs or scarring in their lungs. People lose 20, 30, 40 pounds over a week or two in the ICU. Bellinghausen says most patients start out so weak they are nearly helpless.īELLINGHAUSEN: That whole time in the ICU, they're losing muscle mass. HAMILTON: The condition is known as post-ICU syndrome. Amy Bellinghausen of the University of California San Diego says some COVID-19 survivors will never recover completely.ĪMY BELLINGHAUSEN: Unfortunately, oftentimes, when they're coming off the ventilator, it's not the same person as who went on the ventilator.
#CHOKING AFTER EFFECTS FULL#
HAMILTON: If Williams makes a full recovery, he can count himself among the fortunate. WILLIAMS: It was hard for me to try and recall things or - because, like - right now it takes me a while to think about the words I need to be able to say now, but I'm slowly getting it back. HAMILTON: Williams can feed himself now, but he's still having problems with memory and thinking. WILLIAMS: It took me, like, five or six minutes just to pick that thing up, to get my fingers actually on it and my brain telling my hand to lift it up and, you know, to put it in my mouth. He couldn't drink, so a nurse left him a damp swab to suck on. When Williams first woke up, he had almost no control of his arms and legs, and like most patients on a ventilator, he felt parched pretty much all the time. HAMILTON: Even so, Williams says he's improved a lot, especially since he was overweight and out of shape when he got sick. WILLIAMS: So I need it when I have to wake up in the middle night or something and go to bathroom because, you know, trying to get the feet going again is a little rough. HAMILTON: Also, he still depends on a walker.
And so I wear my oxygen on my nose, and I'm still able to travel all over the house. But he's still tethered to an oxygen machine.ĭAVID WILLIAMS: I just wear my - actually, I have, like, a hundred-foot cord.
HAMILTON: That was more than two weeks ago, and Williams, who is 54, is home now with his wife.
The man is David Williams, a former Marine who spent a week on a ventilator after getting COVID-19, and hospital staff have lined up to give him a big sendoff. JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: At a veterans hospital in Little Rock, Ark., a big man in a wheelchair is gliding toward the exit. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports that the process of recovery can be long and grueling. For someone with a life-threatening case of COVID-19, survival is just the first step.