Phenix City teen had COVID for almost half a year. Her mother dreads long-term effects

Sep. 22—Becky King thought her 13-year-old daughter, Leah Wiseman, was being a typical teenager when she started sleeping in more during winter break last year.

But King noticed her daughter's fatigue getting increasingly worse. Before leaving for a night shift as an RN in the emergency room at Piedmont Columbus Regional, she tucked her daughter into bed.

Her forehead was on fire. King's healthcare training kicked in and she checked her daughter's temperature. It was 102 degrees.

With Leah's breathing and pulse normal, her mother gave her Tylenol and insisted she get fluids and rest. The next morning her temperature was 104 degrees, and they rushed to her pediatrician.

Leah tested positive for COVID-19.

For two weeks, King allowed her daughter to sleep on her chest, like a baby, on the grey couch in their Phenix City apartment. She watched Leah's symptoms closely, feeding her popsicles and anything else she could keep down.

Slowly, she got better, and King believed things were looking up.

But then Leah's fever spiked again and again.

She is one of several teenage patients Dr. Susan McWhirter of Rivertown Pediatrics treated for chronic COVID-19 symptoms that lasted for five to six months — one of the reasons why local doctors and public health officials are urging parents to get their teenage children vaccinated.

"If you're healthy, most kids will do well with COVID," McWhirter said "But there are long term potential consequences for the virus."

'It's just so strange'

Leah experienced constant body aches and fatigue during her COVID-19 infection. Walking from the couch to the bathroom was a chore. Her sense of smell went away, and she lost so much muscle mass that she needed physical therapy. The eighth-grader lost about 15-20 pounds in the first weeks of being sick.

The symptoms never faded. King would find her straight-A daughter, now an eighth grader at South Girard Jr. High School, sitting up in a chair asleep while trying to do her schoolwork. Her low-grade fever became a constant. Leah's inflammatory markers would measure high, indicating that she might have a blood clot, but blood thinners had a limited effect.

There were times Leah's pulse would measure at 220 beats per minute. They had to see a cardiologist who performed electrocardiograms and echocardiograms to check the function of her heart.

As new symptoms appeared, neither King nor her doctors knew what to expect, she said.

"My 13-year-old has had bilateral ultrasounds on her leg to rule out a blood clot," King said. "Like, that doesn't happen. It's just so strange."

At one point a rheumatologist gave Leah a new prescription, and after a couple days King asked the teen how she felt on the medication.

"My fingers and my toes don't hurt anymore," she informed her mother.

It was the saddest moment as a mom, King said, because although she knew her daughter's hips and back hurt, she didn't know the pain was all the way down to the smallest joints like her hands and feet.

Leah tested positive for COVID-19 and experienced the symptoms for five to six months, beginning in January. The cardiologist told King to get her daughter vaccinated when she could because he was not sure Leah could physically handle or survive another strain of COVID-19.

Prior to the pandemic, the worst medical condition Leah had experienced was tracheomalacia. This occurs when infants are born with weak cartilage around their windpipe making it difficult to keep their airway open, according to the National Institutes of Health. The condition typically resolves on its own by the second year of life, and King said Leah was no different.

'Difficult for one to turn a blind eye'

McWhirter has seen teens in Columbus who have chronic fevers, joint aches and fatigue, she said. The virus may not be that complicated for most kids, McWhirter said, but it's hard to predict how it will affect each patient.

The recent surge in coronavirus cases due to the delta variant was evident among Rivertown Pediatrics' patients. The practice had around 200 patients test positive for COVID-19 in the month of August, McWhirter said, and there hasn't been a significant trend downward in September.

Most of the children have recovered well from the virus, she said, but this is not always the case with their extended families. McWhirter credits masking requirements in local districts for preventing the spread at school.

"I am glad most schools are following CDC guidelines," she said. "And families should follow these guidelines as well. This includes masking indoors and avoiding crowds. We have not hit our local peak of COVID cases yet."

In the latest wave of COVID, individuals hospitalized because of the virus have been younger, said Dr. Winston Price, associate professor of pediatrics at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine South Georgia and an Albany member of the National Medical Association.

"It's very difficult for one to turn a blind eye and say that children do not get very sick when the intensive care units in pediatric hospitals — who have the expertise to manage kids in an emergency setting — are struggling to keep pace with the significant morbidity of this particular disease," Price said.

There is also uncertainty about multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) and long-haul COVID in children, Price said. MIS-C is a condition in children, many of whom have had SARS-CoV-2 or been exposed to the virus, where different body parts can become inflamed, according to the CDC. This may include the heart, lungs, kidney, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs.

While most kids recover, the syndrome can be deadly. According to a CDC data tracker, 41 children in the U.S. have died from confirmed cases of MIS-C, as of Aug. 27. Additionally, Georgia has had 200 to 249 confirmed cases of MIS-C as of Aug. 27.

Parents concerned that their kids may have been exposed to COVID-19 or their child has contracted the virus can find more information about COVID in kids on the CDC website.

'The potential to kill your child'

King and her daughter have both since been vaccinated, however only 10.7% of kids under the age of 17 have been vaccinated in Alabama, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. In nearby Muscogee County, 15.3% of kids between 10 and 14 have been vaccinated, reports the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Price said he tells hesitant parents that he understands getting their child vaccinated is their decision.

"But if you know that a disease has the potential to kill your child, as opposed to a vaccine that has gone through all of the same rigorous studies and trials and regulation as vaccines that we've been giving kids over the last 50 years and saving the lives of millions of children around the world, why would you take the chance of having your child get a natural infection?" he said.

McWhirter said many people may worry about how fast the vaccine was made, but reiterated that it has gone through rigorous testing that included 30,000 participants and the same trials as previous vaccines. With over half of the U.S. population now vaccinated, there's a lot of good evidence to say the shot is safe and effective, she said.

"The majority of our cases are going to be kids who are too young to get the vaccine," McWhirter said. "But we have seen cases in plenty of teenagers who could have been vaccinated."

Leah has recovered, but continues to receive physical therapy. She began school in-person and returned to the volleyball team, one of the many activities she put on pause while sick with COVID-19. Returning to school was a sigh of relief, she said, because she was excited to have social interaction again after so many months of isolation.

Although she is relieved her daughter is doing better, King worries about further long-term effects that may present themselves months and years from now.

"You think you have the idea when someone tells you about a heart attack or a stroke or something," Leah said. "'Oh yeah, that must have been awful.' But you can never really understand that severity of pain (with COVID-19) unless you've been there and through all that."

This story was originally published September 22, 20216:00 AM.

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