Over the past few weeks, people had been wondering about the award-winning singer Kelly Price since no one had heard from her. Concern continued to grow when he sister reported her missing. This sent shockwaves through social media as fans and celebrities alike posted pictures and comments of concern for the celebrated singer.
Now, in an exclusive interview with TMZ, the 48-year-old Price emotionally spoke about flatlining from COVID-19 complications and having been "disappointed" with the turn of events amid speculation she'd disappeared.
The "Friend of Mine" singer told the outlet she was never missing. Price made it clear, “I was never missing … everyone in my family knew exactly where I was. It’s very disappointing that things came to this.”
Despite her sister, Shanrae Price, claiming the singer's daughter was a child, Kelly says her youngest daughter is 27 years old.
On Friday, her daughter, Jonia Rolle, spoke to affiliate station CBS-46 and told the outlet her mother was "fine" despite having been recently hospitalized for COVID-19.
The Grammy-nominated singer said that while being hospitalized, doctors "lost" her at one point.
“At some point, they lost me," explains Price. "I woke up a couple of days and the first thing I remember was the doctors standing around me asking me if I knew what year it was,” Kelly Price recalled of the horrifying moment. When the interviewer asked Price to explain what she meant by “they lost me,” she clarified: 'I died.'
Price said before admitting herself to the hospital, she suffered from COVID-19 for a week, and her partner was taking care of her. She said her conditions were "progressing in the wrong direction," and after taking care of her, she says her partner tested positive "within a week" after she caught it. “My temperature had raised to 103 [degrees] and my breathing was extremely shallow,” said Price.
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Though Price’s near-death experience with COVID-19 ended with her life spared, she told TMZ that she is not yet out of the woods. “I have what is called long COVID and I am facing a very uphill battle right now,” Kelly said, before trailing off in tears. “I suffered a lot of internal damage and so I have a lot of rehabbing to do before I am able to be concert-ready again.”
People sometimes called "long haulers" experience long Covid, post-Covid conditions, post-Covid syndrome -- there's no settled name. There's also no diagnostic test, no specific treatment, no pill to take. And while research is ongoing, there aren't large, peer-reviewed, gold-standard clinical trials yet either.
There are potentially hundreds of symptoms, including shortness of breath, fatigue, headache, fever, anxiety, depression, pain, a loss of taste and smell, difficulty thinking, brain fog, a racing heart and many others.
Symptoms are not consistent. Doctors can't predict what symptoms someone will have or who will get them, and symptoms can change over time, or disappear and then come back.
Dr. Mitchell Miglis, an autonomic disorders specialist who works with post-Covid patients at Stanford Health Care said there are cases where he reminds people to watch their salt, or increase their fluids, or prescribes a beta blocker, and they eventually get better.
"We first try to control the symptoms and then use that as a bridge to get them more physically active and then treat all the components that we can," Miglis told CNN.
Some people get better on their own over time, or symptoms can be treated, but for others, recovery remains elusive.
Price first shared that she had tested positive for Covid-19 on July 29. She has not shared whether she is vaccinated.
"I'm following Dr's orders. I'm quarantined. Feeling really drained," she wrote on Instagram. "Splitting headache but I'm not in the hospital. I'm grateful and expecting to have a quick recovery. #GodIsAHealer."
Price said she received her first negative Covid test about a week ago.
She gratefully posted a thank you to those who had been concerned on her Instagram page.
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Price's attorney, Monica Ewing, told CNN via email that her client "does plan to talk more about her Covid journey but not right now. She wants to get further along her recovery and rehabilitation journey first."
Now with that episode behind her and knowing her recovery comes first, she has reflected on the tough year she had during the pandemic, including losing her grandmother to COVID-19. Now, Price says she is focused on herself and her recovery journey.
