Michael Marshall Was Healthy Until Covid Disabled His Body

This article is part 4 of 4 articles on Covid-19 and the Black community. The Intersection Mag received a grant from The National Association of Black Journalists to report on Covid-19 and the Black community.

Michael Marshall posses for a photo. Photo provided Michael Marshall.

Michael Marshall is a normal guy, something of a local hero. He is an author and entrepreneur. His life entails overcoming trials and helping other people. Marshall experienced a brief moment of being homeless after his father abandoned him in New York and was formerly incarcerated. Because of this, Marshall has decided to dedicate a portion of his life to serving unhoused people and the formerly incarcerated. Before being infected with Covid-19, he was in the process of purchasing another house. On top of all this, Marshall, a Virginia resident, is a pescatarian. He exercised like so many other Black people and had no pre-existing conditions. Yet, Covid-19 invaded his body and disabled it. 

Body Change

Marshall doesn’t know how he contracted the virus. All he can say is that he is not 100 percent sure when and where it happened. In February 2021, after leaving work for the day, he felt sick. It was a Friday.

He went to the hospital in Chesapeake, Virginia, and was given a Covid-19 test. That test, according to Marshall, was negative. Medical practitioners told him that he should head home and rest. He said his health started to decrease. When using the bathroom, he noticed the discoloration of his urine. He described it as being the color of Coca-Cola.

Then he lost his taste. He was worried. He told his long-time “female friend” about his symptoms. She recommended that he return to the hospital. It was still Friday. “I was feeling horrible,” he said. But he waited until Monday to return to the same hospital. Upon returning to the same hospital, he was given a second COVID-19 test. It was negative. However, doctors did confirm that he had a respiratory infection.

“I pleaded with the doctor,” Marshall said he told the medical staff. “I know my body. [That test] has got to be a false negative. I have all the symptoms of the coronavirus.”

He remembers the doctor informing him that they were sticking with the evidence of the negative COVID-19 test. So they recommended more bed rest and sent him home. Marshall left the hospital with shortness of breath and still with the inability to smell. 

He returned home and went to sleep. During that week, his symptoms were getting worse. On Monday morning, he went to a different hospital, still feeling ill. Marshall said he could barely walk or talk due to shortness of breath. They had to get a wheelchair for him. The medical staff administered a Covid-19 test, which returned a positive result. 

Doctors were concerned because his oxygen levels were declining. They kept him overnight. Carolyn Smith is his sister. Doctors were in contact with Smith and Marshall’s daughter daily. Doctors informed them that Marshall’s health wasn’t getting better. During that time, hospitals did not allow friends or family members to visit their loved ones. Because his family couldn’t visit him, Michael felt alone. Though this was the COVID-19 protocol to limit the spread – Smith laments this part of that experience. “This wasn’t pleasant,” she explained. “I didn’t like…that no one could see him, not even for an hour or two. We didn’t know what was really going on – only what [the doctors] said to us. It was very stressful for my family.” 

Michael Marshall was in the hospital in 2021 battling Covid-19. Photo provided by Michael Marshall.

She said early on he seemed to be getting better. “He was able to talk, and he was texting me.” He was also talking to his daughter, according to Smith. The doctors informed her that they wanted to treat her brother with convalescent plasma because Michael's health wasn’t improving. The plasma is blood taken from other people who recovered from COVID-19. Doctors used the treatment on COVID-19 patients with weakened immune systems. The treatment is used to lessen the dangerous effects of the disease on the body.

Afraid that death was near, Marshall recalls sending his sister a text, saying: “I'm very sick, and if I don't make it, let everyone know that I'm at peace.”

Marshall believes the plasma had the opposite effect on him.  His sister told me she did too.

Smith said she researched the treatment. In doing so, she understood that it was a possibility that it could make him worse. She was afraid for her brother. She said the next call she received was that he was going on a ventilator. She was shocked.

Marshall was now in an induced coma, and the virus was spreading through his body. His kidneys and the rest of his organs were shutting down. Marshall was on a ventilator for two weeks.

After two weeks, doctors wanted to wean him off the ventilator. But, they were afraid he lacked the strength to breathe without it. In situations like this, doctors sometimes recommend performing a tracheotomy, which could help with better breathing. So they informed the family that they wanted to perform a tracheotomy. His family refused the procedure.

“We wanted to give him a chance,” said Smith. They believed and hoped that he would get better. As doctors lowered the oxygen levels on the ventilator, Marshall started to slowly breathe on his own. Because his condition was so severe, Marshall was doing what some doctors thought was impossible.

It’s not clear when this happened, but when Marshall awoke and started to breathe on his own, he removed the ventilation tube from his throat. This act damaged his throat. He would later need to attend some kind of therapy to heal from the damage. His sister said she had never stopped hoping that he was going to get better. She had a dream that he would – and she held onto that.

A New Reality 

His sister received a call from the doctor saying that Michael had awakened. His health has gotten better over time – but he is not where he once was. He still has shortness of breath, scarring within his lungs, and memory loss. Marshall said, before the virus, he weighed 187 pounds. His illness caused him to lose about 30 pounds. However, he’s gained about 10 pounds back.

“The impact of it and the severity of it, I’m never going to be normal,” explained Marshall. “My body doesn’t feel the same anymore.”

Michael Marshall now has long covid. He sometimes has memory loss, and his breathing is still not 100 percent. Photo by Michael Marshall

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, there are 23 million people living with long covid. For a majority of the pandemic, Black people have been disproportionately affected. Additionally, Black, Latino, and Asian people have disproportionately high rates of infection during surges, and deaths. In Chesapeake, Virginia, according to the latest data published on Dec. 13, there are 61, 288 confirmed cases, 1,031 deaths, and nearly 2000 hospitalized. 

Marshall’s sickness has negatively impacted his financial life. Marshall was a consultant to local nonprofits, a second job. Because he was unable to perform the duties of his business, he estimates that he lost about $15,000 in profits. He was looking to purchase a new before the virus, be no longer could. Furthermore, he said he maxed out his out-of-pocket deductible in October 2022. However, 98 percent of his medical bills, due to being in the hospital, were covered.

Emotionally, at times, it’s been tough. Being in the hospital that long, at the edge of death, has emotionally broken him. He told me that he is traumatized. Memories of being in the hospital have caused him to respond in abnormal ways.

“I had family members in the hospital,” he told me. “I tried to go see them, and I started crying. My family had never seen me like that before.”

However, Marshall has been fortunate, at least when it comes to his job as a program director at Union Mission. The company didn’t terminate his position, event though he was sick and unable to work. But, his memory loss has really affected his everyday life. At the time that I spoke with him, he told me that he had forgotten the day of the week at least one time that week. After his recovery period, he returned to his job. He said his team was really concerned about him. They noticed that he was different. He seemed different because he was.

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