‘My life is broken’: Young Quebecer suffering from COVID complications over a year later

“I’m sad thinking that I will be forever like this,” says Roxanne Smith. The 25-year-old Quebecer suffers from long-COVID complications, a year and a half after infection. This, as the province sees an increase in cases. Alyssia Rubertucci reports.

By Alyssia Rubertucci

25-year-old Quebecer and mother of three, Roxanne Smith, has been living through a rollercoaster for the last year and a half.

“I’m sad thinking that I will be forever like this,” she said. “I don’t have a choice but it’s not a life for me at this moment.”

She first contracted COVID-19 in April 2021 and was put on a feeding tube. A month later, she seemed like she was on the road to recovery, but after last summer, her complications from the virus set her back once again. 


25-year-old Quebecer and mother of three, Roxanne Smith, has been living through long COVID complications. (Credit: Roxanne Smith / handout)


“My life is broken and my heart is broken, too, because I can’t do what I want,” Smith said.

In the last six months, she’s been placed in a coma twice and now has a message for Quebecers, as cases are shooting back up.

“It’s important for me to tell everyone that it’s not finished,” she said. “COVID is still there, and someone who has COVID can be really, really, really sick. It’s not just me.” 


RELATED:

Mother of three recounts ‘heartbreaking’ last six months dealing with COVID-19 complications

‘I just want to die’: Young mother of 3 on feeding tube after falling ill with COVID-19 variant


Quebec’s national health institute, INESSS, says that the increase being seen in COVID-19 cases over the last few weeks will lead to more hospitalizations, projecting over 100 new patients per day within two weeks time.

“We are seeing an increase in certain variants that have been found in other parts of the world.  BA2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 and what’s very clear from data from around the world is that these variants, as previous variants, they have acquired mutations that make them escape or evade immunity from previous infections and even from some remote vaccination,” said Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious diseases specialist.

Experts warning that even though restrictions have been lifted, it’s important to remain vigilant.

“If you get infected, we have no scientific way of knowing which of these trajectories you’re going to have: if you’re going to be asymptomatic, if you’re going to be sick enough to be absent from work or school, but not necessarily sick enough to go to the hospital, or if you’re going to be sick enough in the hospital or if you’re going to get long COVID,” Dr. Vinh said.

Like Smith, who says, before her infection she was otherwise healthy and active, studying to pursue a law degree.



“I [was] always working or going to school. I was always happy and now I’m at home, I can’t go to work, I can’t go to school.”

Smith says she didn’t think she would be this affected for this long.

“I was thinking that maybe one or two months later it will be alright. But now we are two years later, and I’m sick and I don’t feel better,” she said.

Her heart is one of the main places of damage. She’s on a regiment of 20-25 pills and an injection daily.

“They say that maybe I will be like this forever, and if I can’t go back to work and go back to school, I don’t know what I will do. But I don’t want to live like I am now,” she said.

All she is hoping for is to get back to her normal life soon.

“I wish I would just be a young, healthy woman. I want to go back to work. I want to be happy. And now, because I’m always sick, I’m not really happy.”

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today