Batgirl, Gotham Academy Writer Details Year-Long Battle With COVID-19

Comic scribe Brenden Fletcher, best known for penning the DC titles Batgirl and Gotham Academy, was one of the many to reveal they’d been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the first part of 2020 as the pandemic began to spread across the world. Now with over a year at home under our belts, Fletcher took to Twitter to open up about his experience with the virus, the health scares that it caused down the road, and how it continues to impact them. Writing in an extensive thread on Twitter (H/T CBR), Fletcher said he’d been dealing with the “after effects” of the virus for almost a full year, resulting in him having to step away from work (and social media) while he healed.

Fletcher revealed that he was infected last March though he seemed to get over the initial infection, a bout with kidney stones in the summer brought things to a head. He writes: “After 3-5days of feeling mostly fine, my heart would begin racing, I’d get a slight fever and then I’d begin feeling I couldn’t breathe, which would be followed by a couple of days of coughing, clearing the built-up fluid from my lungs, at which point the cycle would start again.”

He continued, “Each time the symptoms returned I felt the effects a little less than the previous round. I was hopeful that it was all just going to peter out and it would be over. I could get back to real life. And that’s when the first kidney stone attack hit and changed the game completely. That first kidney stone attack was savage in and of itself. But something about the trauma it put my body through brought all the Covid symptoms roaring back with a vengeance. And this time, whatever it did to my stomach/GI system would stick with me for months.”

At that time he was retested for COVID and though still had antibodies present, was not currently carrying the virus itself, but doctors believed that the damage down to his immune system by the virus had put it “on edge.” As a result, “even the slightest trauma, like the stone, would push it into a state of high alert.” Due to this, even though he no longer had COVID, his body still made it feel like he did, having been ravaged by it beforehand. Fletcher wrote that this would have been okay if his kidney stones had passed, but they persisted as he passed 15 kidney stones from July of 2020 through the present day

“The great news here is that I was able to get a vaccine jab a couple of weeks back and, I’ve gotta say, it’s been a game changer!” Fletcher concluded. “I can think straight again, I have enough stamina to sit at my desk through a full work day, I can breathe clearly, my stomach seems on a positive path for the first time in months… And here’s the real kicker: I had another kidney stone attack just this week and fully recovered in less than 48hrs! No Covid-like symptoms at all! It honestly feels like a miracle.”

Below is how he capped off his thread on the matter. We wish you further blessings during your recovery Brenden!