The most popular Jeopardy! Ryan Long, a champion, has disclosed that he is still going through a terrible health battle.
The native Philadelphian claimed that he “never signed up” for this.
On Monday, Ryan posted to Twitter to inform his followers that he has a “long COVID.”
When a person tests positive for Covid-19, they are said to have long Covid, which refers to the virus’s long-lasting side effects, which can last for weeks or months.
Long-term COVID can cause a variety of symptoms, including persistent breathlessness, extreme fatigue, fever, stomach pain, and changes in taste or smell.
“Living with long-term COVID is like being entered into a daily potato sack race you never signed up for. Also, your memory becomes a total potato,” he tweeted.
J eopardy! The player withheld information about the symptoms he is still having.
The champion revealed in 2022 that he was hospitalised for Covid in 2020 after contracting it.
After initially submitting an application for the “online test in September of 2020,” Ryan opened up on the official Jeopardy! website in June and described how he actually ended up on the popular game show.
This led to a “Zoom audition.”
“I was not the most confident person in the world, but I did it, thinking the whole time, ‘There’s no way they’re ever gonna let my mug on TV,’” Ryan – who was off from work on medical leave – thought at the time.
He continued: “Still, I was happy I’d actually tried. At least I could say that. Life went back to normal, I got better, and in early January, I went back to work.”
Ryan said: “I had managed to avoid getting sick the entire previous year, but after a few days back at work, my luck finally ran out.
“It went bad pretty quickly. I ended up in the hospital for two and a half weeks…”
Ryan’s situation looked bleak as he recalled: “The hospital staff brought it home to me pretty quickly that they weren’t sure I’d make it.
“I still keep the picture my doctor gave me of my saturated lungs on my phone, as a reminder of how close I came to never seeing my son again.”
Ryan, who has a son named Nathan, previously declared that he would bring his son to California with the money he won from the show.
Ryan said to Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik during his run, “The only thing I have planned is taking my son on a trip; he wants to come out here – he’s been curious about what I’ve been doing.”
The good news is that Ryan was able to bounce back, as he wrote on the website: “The experience taught me not to take anything for granted, and it rekindled a fire in me that I thought had long since extinguished: the fire to do something with my life.
Ryan first mentioned one of the Covid’s long-term side effects back in August.
He gave Philadelphia Magazine his opening, earning a full-page spread.
In his cover story, Ryan struck an inquisitively dashing pose with broad shoulders and short hair.
The winner was questioned about what misconceptions exist among viewers of Jeopardy!
“The physical and mental toll. You have to stay sharp all day long in a constant state of competition and TV readiness,” he said.
But most concerning to fans was when he was asked the one thing he’s surprisingly bad at.
“Remembering things,” he told the magazine.
“My memory has been shot since I had Covid.”
Ryan lightened the mood in his interview by also saying that he was taxed on his earnings: “way…way too much.”
