GREENSBORO, N.C. — More than a year after coronavirus changed the way we live, some are still dealing with lingering illness after the virus leaves their bodies. These are the long haulers.

Chelsea and John Weaver first started experiencing symptoms in January of 2020, but symptoms returned in March. Chelsea even went to the emergency room.

"I was having such a hard time catching my breath, but it was mostly chest pain. It felt like I was having a heart attack," Chelsea says.

This time doctors tested her for the coronavirus. Even though her test was negative, they told her to assume she was positive based on her symptoms since it was early on in the pandemic.

"They said based on symptoms, that's what they were calling some people positive or negative on because they couldn't trust the tests," she says.

Over a year later, her and her husband are still experiencing lingering illness, like shortness of breath, chest pains, fatigue, and difficulty sleeping.

"I think at this point we are probably like 75% along in terms of getting better, but we still have really bad days. You'll have a handful of bad days and then maybe one really good day. You might think you're out of it and then it hits out of nowhere again," she says.

The impact was so draining that John even had to quit his job at the post office.

"I just got to the point physically where I couldn't go into work anymore. I had to quit my job. Luckily, I had some savings that I'm still running on," he says.

They are in the process of selling their home and relocating to family property in Tennessee. 

The two say the most frustrating part is some people do not believe long haul is real.

"My grandmother for example still doesn't fully believe in it. I told her and I tried to explain it to her. Why would I walk away from a federal job making good pay and why would I uproot my entire family for no reason," John says. 

Dr. Ohl, an infectious disease expert with Wake Forest Baptist Health says it is very much real.

"Those types of post illness events have never really been very well understood. It's not just in a person's head. They really feel that way," he says.

He wants the medical community to take a closer look at long haulers.

"Hopefully there's a lot of research put into this because it will benefit society forever because like I said, when in 40 years there's another infection that comes through a population even a different kind of flu, if we understand COVID long haul, it will help us approach this," Ohl says.

For Chelsea and John, they are thankful for the other long haulers they have connected with across the country.

"It's a really big deal to have at least somewhere, even if it's Facebook, even if it's some group of people that I've never met in my life, it's been a huge deal. It's been our only source of really trying to figure out what's going on with us," she says.