After she lost her hair from COVID-19, 7-year-old Regina girl excited for 1st vaccine dose
CBC
Seven-year-old Cedar Herle squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed onto the fur of a therapy dog as she received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a Regina clinic over the weekend.
But she never hesitated.
"I want COVID to go away forever and never come back," she said.
As the push continues for children aged five through 11 to get vaccinated, the curly-haired brunette knows first-hand the long-term effects of the disease. Cedar lost all of her hair after contracting COVID-19 a year ago, and she watched her mother suffer a COVID-related stroke.
"She had to stay in bed lots," Cedar said.
Andrea Herle, a 39-year-old mother-of-three, is still recovering from the long-term effects of the disease. Her physiotherapy doesn't even include moving her body yet — just breathing exercises.
"We do not want COVID in our house again," Herle said. "I would never, ever have imagined to be under 40 and have a stroke."
In November 2020, Herle, a licensed practical nurse who had just returned to work from maternity leave, was caring for COVID-19 patients in their homes.
Then, on Dec. 5, 2020, she woke up drenched in sweat with a pounding heart, body aches and nausea. She knew immediately that she had been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, but at that moment, she mostly felt annoyed at the "inconvenience" of a 14-day quarantine.
Herle spent most of those two weeks in bed, while her husband and kids had only mild symptoms.
Then, a few weeks later, Cedar started napping a lot, vomiting and losing her hair in clumps. Her parents noticed that the bald spots were getting larger.
"It just happened really fast. Every day she lost hair until she didn't have any," Herle said.
That set off weeks of uncertainty, blood work and consultations with specialists, who concluded that the coronavirus had likely triggered an autoimmune response and alopecia (hair loss). Skin and hair problems are documented effects of the virus, but research is still in its infancy.
A new international registry has begun to track alopecia in people who tested positive for COVID-19.
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
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