by Audra H. Anders for The Aha! Connection
I’m reprinting the following account from a high school friend regarding her recent experience with the Coronavirus. She does an excellent job of recounting her experience. I’m hoping you will appreciate the detail from a real actual person who lives in metro Atlanta. I’m not including her full name nor her husband’s or son’s names in order to protect her privacy. I will say that she’s in her fifties….and that she was one of the FIRST cases that Northside Hospital experienced. Things have changed and the staff is now prepared. I have another friend who is a nurse at St. Joe’s and she’s working tirelessly…May God bless the sick and those caring for them.
Audra’s Friend Stella’s Experience with Covid-19
Many have asked about my experience. (Sorry if any typos, still not all with it.)
My Coronavirus positive journey:
March 13, 2020 started feeling achy and sinus headache.
March 19, 2020
First trip to urgent care after feeling bad for 1 week. (Hubby could not go in the building with me.)
No fever
Sinus migraine
Body and muscle aches
Result: Given antibiotics for sinus and Flonase. I was already taking Sudafed with Tylenol, so they told me to continue taking it.
March 23, 2020
Second trip to urgent care. (Hubby could not go in the building with me.)
Sinus migraine
Body and muscle aches
Fever 100.4
Nauseous
Took chest X-rays = Pneumonia. My left lower lobe looked “smokey,” and was told it didn’t look like the gun spray pattern of the virus pneumonia. (FYI, I have had pneumonia before, same location. )
Result: Given antibiotics for pneumonia. Sent home and told if not better go to ER.
March 24, 2020
Woke up feeling worse (if I really did sleep).
Hubby took me to Northside Hospital ER. (He got to stay with me since he didn’t have a fever, until they took me to a room.) They took lots of blood! Said the urgent care’s pneumonia antibiotics were not working and they needed to grow the cultures to find out which antibiotic will work. They gave me a strong general antibiotic until results came back. We did find out that the pneumonia was bacterial (treatable) instead of virus (non-treatable). They gave me two different antibiotics.
I was given the Coronavirus 19 test and told it will take 3 to 4 days for results.
They also gave me a test for the regular flu and RTCPR.
Note: All three tests were nasal tests. 😱
Once they rolled me to a room, Hubby was forced to leave. So, I spent the next 6 days in the hospital alone.
My room was in a negative pressure hallway on the second floor.
My throat started hurting and I started a pneumonia cough. (They gave me cough medicine when I asked for it.)
They gave me a breathing ball plastic thing (not sure what it is called) to breathe into for the pneumonia. They said to use it as much as I can while awake. (This is the same thing they gave me to blow in after kidney surgery in September to get the anesthesia out of my lungs.)
I tried to stay in and out of sleep to get well.
After 3 days, my fever broke! Still having lots of head and body pain. Had to stay on oxygen the whole time due to my severe sleep apnea.
I only have one kidney, so I kept having to remind all the new nurses when they would talk about any new medicines.
I never got any answers from anyone, until Day 4 when a GP came in to tell me I was Coronavirus 19 positive! That was a shock! The flu and the RTCPR test results were negative. There was nothing left to try on me, and the virus would take its natural course. The next goal became to get me home by making sure my fever stayed down and I could breathe without being dependent on the added oxygen.
I was one of the first patients in the hospital. They were not prepared.
I would call the nurse station, and no one would come to my room. Even after waiting at least 15 minutes before pushing the button again. I learned to turn off all the machines. (Not something that I should have had to do, but the beeping hurt my migraine and after an hour…) No one came even after my 24/7 oxygen monitoring machine bells went off and me buzzing the nurse’s station every 30 minutes. After an hour, I figured out how to turn off the machine. No one came in until my normal vital check. I hope that has changed since I left.
There needs to be an advocate for each patient. I couldn’t talk for myself and help was not always there or didn’t come.
My family didn’t get any updates from the hospital. They would be sent to my room phone that I was not answering. They didn’t hear from me for the first 20 hours. The only communication was when I finally texted them, the migraine made it hard to see or talk. After trying daily to talk to someone at the hospital, Hubby finally talked to a nurse near the end of my stay that told him my fever was down and I was in good spirits. (Nothing was “good” about being sick or the stay.)
When I was discharged, I was told to follow up with my GP, kidney and sleep apnea doctors. Then the nurse dressed me in the PPE gown and mask and WALKED me out of the building. (No wheelchair.)
March 29, 2020
Home in self-isolation for two weeks.
It is a very slow process. Still fighting the pain with pain killers around the clock and cough meds.
Every day gets a little better.
April 8, 2020
The pain is going away and feeling much better. Still in isolation resting, drinking lots of water and letting my lungs heal.
Since leaving the hospital, I have been called by a pulmonary doctor (associated with the hospital), a hospital nurse and my insurance nurse to follow up on how I am doing. I do feel better after getting calls from them. Wasn’t sure how it would be after leaving the hospital, since you can’t go to any offices.
This is my experience, I am not a nurse and I know that this virus, the care and the information surrounding it changes every day. If any in the medical field have any updates, I would love to hear them.
I have no idea how I contracted this. It looks like have two risk factors: severe sleep apnea and one kidney. Thankfully, Hubby has continued to be healthy. We have not seen any of our family members during this whole time. Even before getting sick, my son never came home from college, he decided to stay to study and do his classes online. It was comforting to know I have family near his college, if he needed anything.
My New Year’s resolution was to stay out of the hospital this year… Lol. I made it longer than my other resolutions. Humor is the only way to get through this.
Hope this is clear, my brain sure isn’t. Hubby would say that is NOT the virus.
We can never say how thankful we are for all the first responders and medical personnel, before and during this.
Love and prayers to all! Thanks to all for your many acts of kindness and concern for me and my family!