PORT CHARLOTTE (WSNN) – COVID-19 leaves a healthy Charlotte County teen desperate for air; she goes from running a mile to barely able to walk.
“I wish that I could take it from her and I can’t,” Port Charlotte mom, Bobbie Wilson said.
Bobbie Wilson and all five of her kids got COVID-19. But her oldest, Jayla, got the worst of it.
“I’m literally in bed,” Port Charlotte teen, Jayla Holton said. “I can’t really move much. I am feeling shortness of breath now. I do have to take heavier breaths in because just breathing in normally isn’t enough for me.”
Wilson’s pediatrician said she should take Jayla to the hospital.
“Her oxygen was fine, everything was good, her EKG came back normal and she had a chest x-ray and it came back normal,” Wilson said. “The only thing I noticed was that her respirations were in the thirties, which at 14, almost 15 is not normal; it’s not normal, it’s very high.”
Through a CAT scan, they found Jayla’s left lung is partially collapsed and scarred.
“She’s a totally different kid now,” Wilson said.
Jayla went from running a mile to this.
“She walks from her room to the kitchen to sit down to eat and she’s gasping for breath,” Wilson said. “She falls asleep all over my house.”
“It is very shocking, cause I’d never thought I’d get here,” Holton said.
Every day, Jayla uses a nebulizer, checks her oxygen, and blows into a spirometer. And her mom says she feels helpless.
“There’s only so much I can do,” Wilson said. “She had messaged me from her room saying, ‘Mom, am I going to be ok?’ So, I do a lot of crying behind closed doors.”
Wilson wants everyone to know, Jayla had no pre-existing conditions.
“Yea, I get it, it’s been going on for a long time and some people I guess are sick of hearing about it, but you’re not sick of hearing about it until it’s affected you personally,” Wilson said.
They’re going to see the pulmonologist next week, so find out whether Jayla’s lung scarring is permanent.