Table 3.

Acute COVID-19 and PACS experience of patient MGA001 interviewed by GK. The patient is a Kurdish speaker expressing herself in French. The verbatim, translated in English, has been slightly improved.

The acute COVID-19 experience

Before I got sick with COVID-19, I was generally feeling fine because I was used to my condition. But when I got COVID-19, everything became more difficult …“ ”Before having COVID I was mentally in a pretty good place, a little depressed but not much. But with COVID, I was at my lowest point. A week to ten days later, I became extremely sick and more and more afraid. I could hardly see, I couldn’t even hold my phone. I felt like I had no oxygen left in my brain and I had to go to the window to breathe. I had awful headaches. I was thinking, ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die,’ ‘Why me? Why did I get COVID?’. I wanted to die. Life seemed very dark to me, and I didn’t feel like living, I didn’t feel like eating. Even tea, which I usually like to drink, disgusted me. (…) For more than three weeks, I didn’t eat, I lost weight, I couldn’t sleep, I woke up at night, I cried and cried …I didn’t know how to do anything.

The PACS period

For nine months I didn’t laugh, I was always tired, I didn’t go out, I was always in a chair. I had to eat all the time, I gained 7 kgs. I would have hunger attacks, and when I didn’t eat, I would shake. In the morning, when I woke up I ate, at night I woke up and ate. Every morning I was waiting for the night to come and every night I waited for the morning. The days were endless because I was sick, I did nothing. I couldn’t stand the TV or the noise. Before COVID, I thought I was a beautiful woman but after when I looked at myself in the mirror, I said to myself ‘I am so old, as if I had aged ten years’. I forgot a lot, words, names, …I had to repeat to myself ‘I must not forget, I must not forget’. My brain was working backwards. I was angry for no reason. I was wondering ‘when will I die?’