Way more women are reporting ‘long-haul’ covid symptoms. Doctors aren’t sure why.

It’s been a year since neuroscientist and neurologist Dona Kim Murphey came down with covid-19.

In February 2020, she began suffering sudden and extreme bouts of drowsiness. She struggled through vision changes, mild breathing problems, chest discomfort, a rash, a sour stomach. For one day, she experienced severe abdominal pain.

“I literally thought that was the moment I was going to die,” Kim Murphey said, adding that she gathered her family to express that she wanted a do-not-resuscitate order.

Once she got better, about a month passed. Then she contracted a secondary bacterial infection that sent her to the hospital. After undergoing a strong antibiotic regimen for about four weeks, she recovered to about 85 percent of her baseline health, she said.

In August, she suffered a steep decline. She and her neurologist believe she suffered a small MRI-negative stroke and alien hand syndrome, preventing the 41-year-old from having control over one of her hands. She’s had trouble writing and speaking since then.