Yesterday you heard Dr Marvin Manzanero talk about his darkest moments after being diagnosed with COVID-19. But it's scary to think that even after recovery, those moments don't go away - and according to Dr Manza, effects of the virus can continue long after the virus is out of your system. He told us yesterday during a Zoom interview that since he has been vocal about his own condition, other "long-haul" patients have told him about their own strange, long term symptoms.
As he told us, the brain fog, fatigue, shortness of breath, and cardiac problems don't always go away when the virus does.
Dr Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
"I think we're learning new things, we may be looking for certain more obvious things but I think it's what lingers you have to be on the lookout for a well. Not only physically but mentally too is a component you need to look at. The long term effects of that as well, emotionally as well it really takes a toll on you. I think people can be pushed into depressed quickly and if you have a predisposing situation as well, and those might be things that fall under the radar because, particularly I think in the male population, which Is one of the reason I chose to be vocal about my experience, not that I am trying to bring any spotlight on me, but I think it's making people understand that it's real and it's not going to not affect you just because you're a young person and you can take things for granted. You don't know what is going to drive those lesions in the lungs, you don't know how it's going to regress, you don't know how long it's going to be there. Now that I've been vocal there have been a lot of people reaching out to me having mental lapses, brain fog, and this is months after. A colleague from Samara is saying four months after she had COVID, she cannot dress herself, because she it having cardiac complications as a result of COVID, post COVID-19 symptoms. So she's back on steroids. I was placed back on steroids from last week. I have a young person reach out of me from Corozal, saying he's a person who does two hours of gym everyday, and he got COVID in April and since then, the most he can walk, not even run, is two miles a day, because he is just so fatigue."
And it is precisely those long term effects that made Dr Manzanero step back from his duties as DHS. He said that while he is in recovery mode, he has tried not to take on more of a strain on his mental health and as such has refrained from social media, news outlets, and general information on COVID-19.
So he may not have known about the media reporting of the appointment of Dr Melissa Diaz as Acting DHS - and Minister of Health, Michel Chebat's comments implying that Dr Manzanero will eventually be removed from the post.
For now, Dr Manza says he simply cannot take up the DHS duties at this time.
Dr Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
"The week I was in the hospital, I wasn't really following anything. I was not, I mean I had posted even the note I did when I was initially diagnosed, and I don't think I checked social media until days after, and I still have many unanswered messages on Facebook and Whatsapp, so I wasn't really paying any attention to what has been happening. I've been on survival mode, even at home I'm not reading COVID-19 situations. When I visited a colleague doctor a patient last week Wednesday, my controlled CATSCAN is still showing lesions or patches in both lungs and that's why I was put back on steroids both orally and inhale. He said you know what, your sick leave would have ended today but given that you need to go back and start severe respiratory exercises because I can't climb stairs, I can't climb a flight of stairs because I'm getting short of breath, I can't be following other situation in the medical world. Now there is an acting DHS because I cannot function. So that's what I would have to say in that light."
"I have a doctor's visit in the next two weeks to determine how much lung function is going to remain, and I will have to learn to live with that lung function that remains, if it's 70% lung function then I will have to learn to live, run, walk jog, with that 70%, you have to learn. Your heart will have to learn, your brain will have to learn. It's a learning process."
Dr Manzanero said that his energy levels are still low, and vary from day to day, morning to evening. But, as you heard, he is committed to running marathons again.
