The elusive nature of COVID-19 has communities around the world on edge and fatigued, as variants spike and wane. Medical experts admit there’s a lot more to learn about COVID.
In Bowling Green, Cathy Severns is dealing with the long-term health impacts of COVID.
A COVID-related medical crisis for the 67-year-old came despite extreme precautions, including quarantining with family and a few friends during the early part of the pandemic, two doses of the vaccine, the first booster and masking.
She contracted COVID from someone she knew, and she tested positive this past February.
"I was crushed when I got it because we had been so careful," said Severns.
After five weeks of headaches and fatigue, a few weeks later she had a sudden severe pain behind her ribs in her left side and went to an urgent care facility. She was put in an ambulance and sent to The Medical Center in Bowling Green.
Emergency physician found a problem with her spleen, but doctors at the time wanted to save that organ.
She went home and a couple of days later still had pain and was having trouble breathing, so she went back to the Med Center.
She had to have emergency surgery to remove a ruptured spleen, and a dangerous complication occurred: her abdomen filled with blood.
“My fear, at this point is, is COVID finished with me? You know, because I certainly didn’t expect it to come back and get my spleen.”Cathy Severns
Her doctors determined the medical crisis was related to COVID, and research is just beginning to increase about the impact of the virus on the spleen.
The spleen helps fight infection and filters the blood. People can survive without a spleen, which is sometimes removed due to an injury.
Severns said not having a spleen leaves her immunocompromised.
“My fear, at this point is, is COVID finished with me? You know, because I certainly didn’t expect it to come back and get my spleen,” said Severns.
The retired school teacher and principal also has to deal with a complication of the crisis with her spleen, the partial collapse of one lung.
She was in the hospital for three weeks after the emergency surgery, during the time she was scheduled to have her second booster. She got that booster in June.
She also has to have a variety of other vaccinations to protect her from diseases that are more apt to infect her, because she has no spleen.
Severns said she was healthy and active before COVID, but the virus and the related medical treatments have dominated the past several months of her life.
“I feel a little bit robbed by COVID, you know, of not being able to do my normal activities and having fear of getting sick again," said Severns. "I don’t ever want to be as sick as I was from the spleen.”
She is slowly regaining some of her energy.
"I just hope to get back to being myself and having lots of energy and ready to go out and get things done," said Severns.
In mid-July Severns became a patient in a 'long COVID' program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where she will see
a variety of specialists, as the aftereffects of the stubborn virus continue to impact her life.
Note: You can listen to an extended conversation with Cathy Severns here: