If we were to consider the impact of COVID on young people, we might fall into the trap of a broad generalization. This could be along the lines of ‘yes they get it but the symptoms are mild so it is no great deal’. Today we explore the pandemic through the eyes of a teen who caught the disease at the same time as her mother.
Seeing the Pandemic Through the Eyes of a Teen
Kitty McFarland was a fit and healthy 14-year-old, when she contracted COVID-19 In March 2020. She enjoyed ballet, paddle boarding, running, and netball with her peers. Then she caught the coronavirus, although the early symptoms were just a cough and flu-like fever.
However, as he mum recalls there was a terrifying period of three days when she was unresponsive. About a month later she relapsed after light exercise, and spent the next eight months in bed. ‘You go through so many phases of up and down,’ she recalled to World Health Organization international. ‘It’s like being on a roller coaster.
‘I mainly felt dizzy and exhausted,’ she continued. ‘I would faint a lot and get heart palpitations. I could be just sitting around, and my heart would suddenly leap to 190 beats a minute.’ Meanwhile her mother also developed Long COVID and they both had to rely on her dad.
Kitty is Still Struggling to Cope with Life
Kitty had difficulty coping with online lessons, and so her parents eventually home-schooled her. ‘I had an examiner come to my house, which made it a lot easier. I could just go back to bed as soon as I’d taken an exam, which really helped,’ she explains.
‘Sometimes I find it hard to speak,’ she says. ‘My brain feels very blurred and I can’t think of a sentence. I stutter a lot. Every day is different. Sometimes I’ll be fatigued and dizzy, sometimes I feel brain fog, but I can walk around with it.
‘Sometimes, if I’m doing well, we can go out for walks, but then the next day I could be back in bed. You go through so many phases of up and down, it’s like being on a roller coaster forever.’
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