In a recent Instagram post on her official account, Lena Dunham (Girls, Camping) opened up about her experience with suffering from COVID-19, per The Hollywood Reporter. Dunham became ill in March and experienced symptoms, which included fatigue, high fever, headaches, and aching joints, for three weeks.
The actress explained her reasoning for sharing her experience, saying, ” I don’t want to unnecessarily add my voice to a noisy landscape on such a challenging topic, as an unfathomable number of people have lost their lives to COVID-19 — a phrase we didn’t even know in January. But seeing the carelessness with which so many in the United States are treating social distancing, people jogging without masks and parties on Instagram, I feel compelled to be honest about the impact this illness has had on me, in the hopes that personal stories allow us to see the humanity in what can feel like abstract situations” (Instagram). Dunham’s main goal is to educate those who do not believe in the severity of the virus. Her intense struggle with COVID has given her the ability to speak on this matter with authority through urging her fans to wear masks and practice social distancing.
To solidify this message, Dunham told her fans the grim details of her illness: “Suddenly my body simply… revolted. The nerves in my feet burned and muscles wouldn’t seem to do their job. I couldn’t sleep but I couldn’t wake up. I lost my sense of taste and smell. A hacking cough, like a metronome keeping time. Inability to breathe after simple tasks like getting a glass of water. Random red washes. A pounding headache right between my eyes. It felt like I was a complex machine that had been unplugged and then had my wires rerouted into the wrong inputs” (Instagram). For Dunham, this intense pain lasted for 21 days.
In her post, Dunham also expressed how lucky she was to have her mother continuously checking in on her while being able to afford a doctor who could advise her constantly on how to deal with her sickness. “Lots of people are [handling being sick] gracefully right now,” she says. “But worse than that, they’re doing it alone” (Instagram). You can view her Instagram post below: