AFTER COVID
They beat the virus, but it nearly beat them
Jace Bruno, 6, of Milford and Sharon Moye-Johnson, 54, of Wallingford, soldiered through COVID-19 without hospitalization, but both are among the thousands who later found themselves with potentially deadly conditions believed to be linked to the virus.
Jace has recovered, but MoyeJohnson has been left disabled.
For Jace, who was 5 at the time of his COVID ordeal, the high fever and lethargy started about four weeks after he had a relatively mild case of COVID-19 that brought low-grade fever, headache and gastrointestinal symptoms.
He was lucky his mother, Kendall Bruno, had read about Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, or MIS-C, a rare, sometimes deadly inflammatory condition that has been known to strike children following COVID-19
He was luckier still that mom persisted after a doctor sent them home and later that day brought Jace to the hospital emergency department when he woke up from a nap with a 104.7-degree fever.
Once at the hospital doctors ran tests and quickly confirmed Jace had MIS-C, which according to the Centers for Disease Control as of Jan. 31 had struck 6,851 children nationally, killing 59.
By the time Jace got to his hospital room, his fever had spiked to 105.3 and he was shaking, Bruno said. Doctors ordered an intravenous dose of immunoglobulin to trigger an immune response and, luckily, it worked.
Time was of the essence in preventing Jace’s further decline, Kendall Bruno has said.
When Jace was released from the hospital in 2021, he was to be monitored closely, take steroids for six weeks and continue seeing a cardiologist and a rheumatologist at a special clinic at Yale New Haven Hospital for MIS-C.
Today, he’s off medications and is doing typical first-grade activities – playing with friends and baseball. “Just a few more days and there could have been permanent damage,” Kendall Bruno said. “He’s been doing really well.”
Bruno said she was lucky to have heard of the syndrome, as many had not, she later learned.
The takeaway for Bruno: “Definitely to be hyper-aware of your child’s symptoms. And don’t be afraid to push back if you think there’s something wrong,” she said.
Moye-Johnson ignored a fourday headache in 2020 because she thought, being 52 at the time, that she was too young and healthy to have a stroke.
She didn’t have high blood pressure or any other underlying medical conditions, but MoyeJohnson didn’t factor in a case of COVID-19 in April 2020 that doctors told her likely contributed to the stroke, in her case a blood clot that caused a dissection of an artery leading to the brain.
Doctors told her COVID-19 can affect clotting long after the virus is gone.
Moye-Johnson made significant progress regaining speech and most of her movement, but hit a roadblock in her inability to recover movement in her left arm and hand.
That piece of recovery was what Moye-Johnson needed to return to her job as the first woman and first African American appointed to the position of regional manager of the Judicial Court Support Services Division Bail Service.
She can’t return to the job without that arm and hand movement because the job requires driving.
Disability retirement is her only option, Moye-Johnson said. To compound the problem, her husband, Johnny Johnson, was laid off from his job in August.
“It’s difficult and I do sometimes wonder why was I chosen?” she said. “God does everything for a reason. Maybe I have a story for others. If I can do it they can do it. I just keep plugging away. I’m here for a reason.”
Moye-Johnson had a tough case of COVID-19 six months before the stroke — a 104-degree fever for 10 days, but didn’t require hospitalization.
Following a week at Yale New Haven Hospital after the stroke and a surgery, Moye-Johnson was sent for rehabilitation to Gaylord Specialty Healthcare in Wallingford, where she made great progress.
She didn’t have many of the typical stroke symptoms — for her, the warning sign was a severe headache for the previous four days that didn’t go away with over-the-counter pain medication.
Then one day she woke up and her legs were like rubber, she said — she “couldn’t stand.”
She isn’t as optimistic about full recovery now as she was in the beginning, but her faith is unflappable
“I still believe. So many other people in my position haven’t made it through,” she said. “I’m still trusting and believe in God. I have to keep my faith.”