257 - A COVID-19 Long-hauler Shares His Story
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jim Golen, a nurse in Minnesota, became sick with COVID in March of 2020. Nearly one year later, he still suffers from severe shortness of breath and brain fog and may have permanent lung damage. Golen talks with Stephanie Desmon about how he got COVID, the doctors who misdiagnosed him with anxiety and depression, and how long-haul COVID has completely changed life for him and his wife. Golen also speaks about support groups for long-haulers that have been helpful for him and one message he hopes everyone hears: Wearing a mask is an act of empathy and kindness. Read more about Jim Golen's story in Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine: https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2020/covid-long-haul
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KEYWORDS: long-term symptoms; post-viral syndrome
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 3, a Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.3 | I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:19.6 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence |
| 0:22.4 | and experience to the public health news of the day through informative interviews with scientists, |
| 0:27.8 | community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more. If you have ideas |
| 0:34.4 | or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question at jhhhu.edu. |
| 0:41.1 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:47.4 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of public health on call. |
| 0:51.0 | Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Jim Golan, a home health nurse in Minnesota, who contracted |
| 0:56.9 | COVID early in the pandemic. He is what doctors now call a long hauler, still suffering from |
| 1:03.4 | the effects of COVID-19 10 months after he first became ill. He talks about how difficult his |
| 1:09.6 | journey has been and how he isn't sure whether he will recover. Let's listen. |
| 1:15.6 | Jim Golan, thanks so much for joining me. Yeah, thank you for having me, Stephanie. So Jim, we have you here today because you have been diagnosed with COVID and you are many months later still experiencing |
| 1:32.8 | a lot of symptoms. And I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind starting a little bit at the beginning. |
| 1:38.4 | You became sick, I understand, in March. Yes. Tell me how that happened. |
| 1:46.3 | Okay. Well, my story, |
| 1:48.0 | I'm a home care nurse. |
| 1:49.7 | I started having symptoms of COVID |
| 1:51.7 | about March 7th, including |
| 1:53.7 | the severe, shortens to breath, |
| 1:56.5 | oxygen sets dropping into |
| 1:58.0 | the 80s, and fever, |
... |
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