My COVID-19 Experience

When people learn about my bout with COVID-19 I am often asked to describe my experience. I am always happy to do so, but I find that normally it involves me trying to type a long detailed story on my phone, and inevitably I leave out what I believe might be pertinent information for them. So I have decided to do my best to describe it in detail on this blog post so I can share it whenever, I am asked, and if someone wants a friend or family member to read it they can forward.

For me it began the day the nation was put on stay at home requests, March 16th. The week before my 90 year old uncle was ill with the flu, I took him to the ER to be seen, knowing that driving him in the car with me would put me at risk for the flu, but he needed to go. The following weekend my wife was at his apartment doing his laundry, he was still ill. She caught it a few days later, both of them had a stomach flu. On March 14th I was mentioning to her that I must have dodged a bullet because more than a week had gone by and I didn't get it. However, I spoke too soon. Over the weekend I noticed that my cough had gotten worse. I have had a chronic cough for the last three years, I have been tested and retested and it is caused by my body not liking a lot of possible allergens. When the cough increased I knew something was coming on, assuming it was my every spring sinus infection. So I cancelled all my meetings for Monday the 16th and worked from home. By that evening my fever started and from that time for two weeks I had a fever plus or minus of 102.

I had made an appointment with my doctor on my phone app for that coming Wednesday on Sunday evening, and also requested a prescription of the antibiotics I normally get for the sinus infection. I hadn't heard back so I wasn't aware that the prescription as ordered and waiting for me. I went to doctor on Wednesday and tested positive for the flu, influenza B. Not the stomach one that my uncle and wife seemed to have. So from there on it was next to impossible to get a COVID test because I was diagnosed with the flu.

That following Saturday, my wife was concerned because I kept getting worse, and my fever stayed about 102 all day and night even though I was taking Tylenol every three hours. She called the Nurse on Call number and after she spoke with me she wanted me to get to see a doctor within the next 24 hours. I went to St. Vincent's ER because it was close to my house. I explained it was unlike any flu I had ever had, how I couldn't eat because everything tasted absolutely awful, everything tasted like pure salt or a metallic chemical taste. The only thing I could bring myself to eat was a banana each day. I ended up losing 18 pounds in two weeks. Unfortunately have put about half of it back on. When I was with ER doctor she told me that it wasn't uncommon for the flu to last two or three weeks. I had never heard that before. I told her about how my wife and uncle had Influenza A but I somehow missed that one and got B, she told me she believed I had both, she told me to quit taking the antibiotics because it won't help the flu. She then sent me home.

That next week, I kept feeling worse. I simply couldn't think, my brain felt like it was mud. Every waking moment, which were the smallest part of the day, I was confused, trying to figure out if something I saw, heard, or believed I had experienced was real or some sort of fever dream or hallucination. By back was killing me, as an old wrestler who used to cut very unhealthy amounts of weight, I recognized the pain was kidneys. I was dizzy and found walking difficult to navigate without worrying about falling. When I stared coughing up blood, I called my doctor again and said that this is unlike any flu I have seen, and something isn't right. I waited on a return call. By that Wednesday night, I still hadn't heard back from them, but right before I was going to bed a major coughing fit happened, and I simply could not breathe. It felt like my ribcage was collapsing on itself and I couldn't get any air. It took me about an hour to calm down enough that, with effort, real determined effort, I was able to breathe at least shallowly. My wife was holding me up until she could get me into a chair.

The next day, the doctor office called back and told me to go to the ER for a chest x-ray. They asked me to take a deep breath and it wasn't something that was possible for me to do. The tech told me I would be hearing from my doctor because my lungs were a mess. This would have been day 10 of COVID-19, days 10-11 are the two worst because that is when your lungs fill completely. He sent me home to wait for my doctor's call. The doctor called the next afternoon, he wanted me to go to a respiratory clinic. I drove there, it was actually in my doctor's normal office, but the hospital system had moved them all around. He was now in a different facility doing video doctoring so he couldn't see me. I drove to the door where I normally go in, but there was a sign that no entry was allowed to that door, that I had to go around to door 7. I wasn't sure where that was so I tried walking around to it, I ended up having to lay down on the side walk when I got about 3/4 of the way there because I simply couldn't get a breathe. It was almost impossible to talk with the staff when I got in after my little walk. The doctor there was very concerned about my lungs and my very low blood oxygen levels. She wanted me admitted to the hospital right then, put on oxygen and an IV. So she sent me to the only door open at the hospital, the ER, she called ahead and told them she wanted them to admit me. When I got there they did another chest x-ray, blood tests, and a COVID-19 test. Three hours later they came back in where I was, I assumed they were going to take me to my room. However the ER doctor said, she was 100% sure I had COVID-19 even though the test hadn't come back yet. She then sent me home and said come back to the ER if I couldn't breath. I was thinking, I came here today and yesterday because I couldn't breathe and both times you sent me home. I didn't have the energy to argue.

The next day, I got two calls, one from hospital and one from my doctor both said I had COVID-19, my doctor said I was the only one he knew who had both the flu and COVID-19 at the same time. He ordered me a Z-pack antibiotic and told me to start taking the other one he had given me again. This would have been day 12, two more days and three days without a fever and I was off quarantine. However, that wasn't an issue, it was another week before I felt remotely human again. In fact, it was the Friday of the third week before my brain felt like it was actually functioning again. I recall asking my wife about a "device" I believe she had made that I was using every night to prop me up so I could breath, but I couldn't find it. There never was any such thing but in my mind, and it was something I believed I was using almost for three weeks.

I have a friend, who is a doctor and research scientist, who has been studying COVID-19, he has been a God-send to me, educating me and assuring me when needed. He taught me that the media has this all wrong, that it isn't a respiratory disease but a blood disease. That it attacks the red blood cells capacity to distribute oxygen to the body. This caused the organs to fail for lack of oxygen, the brain, kidneys, liver, etc. This explained a lot. That is also why they are seeing so many patients with blood clots from it.

For me I was down for three weeks, then it took almost three weeks to get strong enough to actually feel normal. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. However, as my doctor and my doctor friend have explained to me, I am now 100% immune and can now pay it forward by donating plasma. I am in the process of working through that system now. But today, really great news, my wife, who was with me every day and didn't get it, her antibodies test came back and she has had it. So we don't know if that was the three days she was sick that I thought I avoided, or if she was totally asymptomatic. But she too is now immune.