Understanding what's driving long covid is still largely a mystery to doctors

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Understanding what's driving long covid is still largely a mystery to doctors

Megan Swift | Sunday, March 10, 2024 5:01 a.m.

Courtesy of Meghan Carey

Sean Carey, 51, (left) and Meghan Carey, 48, of Monroeville, are pictured on their 10-year wedding anniversary on July 21, 2023. This was 22 days before Sean Carey went into cardiac arrest at a nursing home in Ohio. He contracted an early strain of covid in July 2020 and died from long covid on Oct. 1, 2023.

For Sean Carey, long covid proved fatal.

Carey contracted an early strain of covid in July 2020 when he and his wife, Meghan, lived in Daytona Beach, Fla.

“He had pain that was too inhumane to live with,” his wife said. “He had tremors that were like lightning bolts going through his body.”

He died more than three years later — on Oct. 1, 2023 — at age 51.

After getting sick, Sean Carey’s condition never really improved. The couple moved home to Monroeville in January 2021 to be closer to family.

Throughout her husband’s illness, Meghan Carey said some family and friends had trouble understanding why he wasn’t recovering.

“The last thing either of us ever wanted to do was to lay around the house by ourselves every day,” she said. “Sean felt like nobody wanted to listen and nobody believed us.”

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