“It felt like no matter how much sleep you get, you’re still not able to get through the day,” Neaves recalled.
Rosario Neaves enjoys watching the opening act, Dawes, while attending a concert by her favorite band, The Head and the Heart, at Moody Theater in Austin earlier this month. This was Neaves’ first big night out since she began suffering from Long COVID more than two years ago. She was officially diagnosed with the chronic illness last summer.Neaves suffered for 18 months before she received a medical diagnosis. She’s encountered doctors and family members who didn’t believe she was sick.
But the turmoil she has endured since early 2020 remains with her. She’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. “I’ve had patients who were on the verge of losing custody of their kids. I’ve had patients who were on the verge of losing their homes. I’ve had patients that have already lost their jobs or were inappropriately fired from their jobs because of their illness,” she said. “Desperation doesn’t even begin to cover it. Desperate is not a big enough word.”
She enjoyed a long career that included jobs in Boston, San Antonio, St. Louis and London before she was hired by the city of San Jose in late 2017. Her previous employers included the public relations firm FleishmanHillard, the city of San Antonio, oil refiner Tesoro and the San Antonio Housing Authority.
“I remember specifically the day that I got the call that was like ‘It’s coming here — it’s arrived for us,’” Neaves said. Rosario Neaves enjoyed a full and healthy life before she was sickened by a chronic condition known as Long COVID. The San Antonio woman enjoyed salsa dancing in St. Louis with her friend, Nabil Elhassan, years before the illness sent her life on a detour.Rosario Neaves, 42, visits a public library with her family. Neaves has been sick with Long COVID for the past two years.
She endured shortness of breath and symptoms of a cold or a sinus infection that spring, which she reported to her primary care doctor. The breathing problems felt nothing like the moderate asthma she suffered before the pandemic. Nobody thought it was COVID. Several more ER visits followed that summer when her heart rate soared to staggeringly high levels for no reason she could discern.
“I felt labeled as a woman. I felt labeled especially as a person of color. As somebody who’s sort of diminutive in size, I think you get treated a certain way.” Neaves later followed up with a doctor she met in the ER who suggested she might have “mild COVID” — another term used at the time for the chronic illness. She began to research the condition and became convinced he may be right.In July 2020, she resigned from her job in San Jose. She had planned to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago that fall. She debated whether to move to Chicago or return home to San Antonio and conduct her studies online.
In 2021, COVID vaccines became available. Other COVID long-haulers debated online whether the shots helped. She decided to proceed.She developed a multitude of new food allergies. The list of foods she could safely eat narrowed considerably. A week of relentless rain arrived. Neaves, living alone in her apartment in downtown San Antonio, was hardly showering because she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t tolerate heat or humidity. She didn’t have the strength to prepare her own meals. She told her mother she didn’t know if she’d survive the week.
“I remember talking to my sister and just saying, ‘I can’t keep doing this ... And if this is what life is going to be like, I can’t endure this any longer,’” Neaves recalled.One day that summer, she was alone in her apartment and found she couldn’t get up. Her body wouldn’t move, though she tried mightily. She called 911. An ambulance took her to Methodist Hospital.
The public has more sympathy for cancer patients than Long COVID patients due to a lack of understanding and because COVID-19 has become so politicized, said Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, professor and chair of UT Health San Antonio’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. The illness is so new that many physicians aren’t yet aware of it or aren’t well educated on how to recognize the signs, she said. Much of the research on Long COVID is still in progress.
She is calling on the federal government to do more to help Long COVID patients suffering through similar ordeals. One night, she went to The Cove with a friend and sat outside listening to live music. “I just reveled in every moment,” she said.
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