rorywinslowpatch

[rorywinslowpatch]

My Story of COVID-19

We all have difficult days, weeks, months, even years. Keeping it simple, I can say my family and I had our fair share of hardships in 2019. My husband and I went into 2020 with hope that it could only go up from here. January and February were off to a good start. I was happy with my job and all the opportunities it was presenting to me. Life was finally going our way.

In early March, I was invited to attend a client event in Vail, Colorado. During this time, COVID-19 was a concern but there had only been a handful of cases confirmed in the United States. I had just returned from a conference in Miami, shaking hands with people from all around the world and thought, “If I didn’t get it there, I should feel safe going on this trip”. So, I went. I met some of the most genuine and intelligent people I’ve ever come across. Walking away from that event I knew I had friends I could call when I visited Philadelphia, DC, California, Florida, New York, even Brazil. It was truly the trip of a lifetime and I’ll always be thankful for such an incredible opportunity.

The week of March 9th. I had returned from Vail that Sunday and was back in the office on Monday. I was still exhausted from the amazing long weekend, sharing stories with my manager who had also attended the trip. It was about 4:00pm when I felt ‘off’. I remember explaining to my manager that I felt weird and my throat was sore when I had woken up and continued throughout the day. I asked if she minded if I left early to get some rest and come back ready to tackle it on Tuesday. Tuesday morning came and I still had this strange sore throat, it’s hard to explain, but I didn’t recognize this pain. I started to self-diagnose myself thinking…maybe its strep, allergies, weather change? I looked in my throat and saw some white spots so figured it was some sort of infection. I took a sick day and went over to Urgent Care. Reminder, COVID-19 had not hit the United States as hard as it had internationally. I walked in and felt immediately uncomfortable. It was packed and every single person was wearing a mask. I walked up to sign in and immediately took note to everything I touched – the counter, the pen, the paper work. After I was signed in the nurse let me know it would be about 2 hours, she wasn’t wrong. I struggled to find a spot to sit while keeping a fair distance from the other coughing patients. As I sat there I remember listing out the COVID-19 symptoms in my head to make myself feel safe – fever (nope), cough (not really), shortness of breath (nope), nausea (maybe it was a very long hangover from the trip?). I even got joking texts from my coworkers – “make sure you don’t have the rona”. As my mind spun out of control, I finally heard my name called. We do a strep test, negative. We then do a strep culture (I guess it’s more accurate), negative. The doctor said I definitely have Tonsilitis which is an infection in your throat from a virus, can be any virus. I asked the doctor if he thinks it could be the COVID-19 virus. His response, “No, because you haven’t left the United States”. Feww, I felt a sense of relief. He prescribed some antibiotics and I was on my way. On Wednesday I woke up with the same sore throat with an additional symptom, fatigue. I slept from 9pm on Tuesday to 10pm on Wednesday and then 11pm on Wednesday to 7am on Thursday. In the last two days I had slept 33 hours with brief moments to go to the bathroom and drink water. When I woke up on Thursday, I felt rested and my sore throat had gone away so I figured it was some sort of infection I had fought off and was on the mend. I went to work as we had our CRO in town and wanted to at least show my face. We had a happy hour after work for a colleagues work anniversary. As I walked into the bar I was told someone from the Vail trip had tested positive for COVID-19. I remember the gut wrenching feeling and the amount of exhaustion that suddenly flooded my body. I immediately panicked and called my sister in-law crying on the curb outside. She was trying to calm me down and said to just call the Urgent Care back that I had visited a couple days earlier and see if they knew where I could get tested. There, began the downward spiral of searching for information – WHERE COULD SOMEONE POSSIBLY GET TESTED. At the time, we didn’t have the testing resources we have now. Every new number I was given gave me another number to call, which resulted in a lot of frustration and worry as my symptoms got worse. I remember crying to my husband with the panic and unknown of COVID-19. I slowly learned no one had access to the test unless you walked into a select few hospitals in Georgia. I called around and found one that did, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital. On Friday, I walked right up to the front desk and said nervously, “I came in contact with someone that tested positive for COVID-19 and I have some of the symptoms.” She immediately told me to back up 3-steps and to wait for my blue suit. I was then asked to sit on a separate side of the waiting room as they moved others farther away from me. You could tell everyone was thinking the same thing. Maybe 2 minutes later they escorted me to a room by myself where the nurse asked me questions through a window – I verbally had to give my social security, insurance, and physical address. I spent the next 6 hours in the room having various tests done. First, they had to test me for the flu to rule it out (negative). They then performed two tests for COVID-19 - one swab in the nose and one in the throat. They then had to x-ray my chest to make sure I wasn’t developing pneumonia. Each time someone came into the room they had a very thorough process: sanitize their hands, put on a new blue suit, 2 layers of gloves, sanitize again, a medical mask, glasses, the plastic face shield. There were roughly 30 minutes in between each test and during that time many nurses would walk by my room labeled with a big red paper and black X, marking it was for a COVID-19 patient. As if, I didn’t feel like an alien already. I will say the doctors and nurses at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital made me feel as comfortable as they possibly could and were amazing describing each step of the process. As I left the room the doctor goes, “You’ll get a call in about 3-5 days with the results, but I doubt you test positive”. It was 12 days. During those 12 days of waiting, I found myself gaining more symptoms, which then came more anxiety and fear. I wrote down my symptoms each day in case the doctors needed me to recall anything. I kept all of these in my notepad on my phone, but I’ll save everyone some time and skip the details.

As the days went on more people from the trip were getting positive results. I think the actual ratio ended up being 70% of the people on the trip. During those 12 days, every moment was different. One day you feel worse than the day before and then the next you feel like you’re finally making progress. With those new symptoms, came defeat. It wasn’t until day 5 (after being tested) that my deep chest cough developed. I had some ‘dry cough’ on the first couple days, but nothing like this. It took 3 days to finally get a doctor to prescribe an inhaler without seeing me in person. They also sent over what I call ‘the miracle drug’, Tessalon Perles also known as Benzonatate. It was the tiniest pill I had ever seen. I immediately called my mom (which I was doing probably twice a day at this point) to see what it was. She encouraged me to take them as it would help with the coughing fits. IT WORKED, after 2 days of taking it the fits had subsided and I was slowly starting to have ‘proactive coughs’. Over the next few days I took a combination the ‘miracle drug’, mucinex-D, elderberry syrup, and a liter of water. As the coughing subsided, another symptom returned, fatigue. This wasn’t like the tiredness I was feeling before but more exhaustion. The smallest tasks were completely wiping me out – the dishes, vacuuming, folding laundry, etc.

March 18th. I remember this moment as if it was yesterday. If you aren’t someone that is open to faith, stop here.

I was having one of my defeated days and couldn’t see the light at the end. My husband was out on the porch talking to his mom. I felt the need to clear my head but couldn’t walk more than 10 minutes without having to take a break so I decided to drive around instead. I was driving down one of my favorite roads in Atlanta, bopping my head to the music because I didn’t have the lung capacity to sing along. Realizing why I wasn’t singing, I started to cry. I pulled over in one of the neighborhoods and completely let it out. I was crying, snot everywhere, and of course I couldn’t find those stupid napkins you are supposed to leave in your glovebox. I took a moment to settle my breath and started to talk. At the time, I want to think I knew Who I was speaking to. I had just started to go to church about 8 months ago for the first time in my life. To be fair, I was still skeptic but open to the idea of a higher power. I started rambling in my car at the end of some random person’s driveway. I was saying it all – how scared I was, the unknown, the lack of control, frustration of not having my results, worry of job security, everything came out. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself praying for the first time. I prayed for guidance..support…anything that would give me some sort of relief. I looked at the time and realized I had been talking to myself for over an hour. I started up the car and made my way back to our place. I walked in and my husband asked where I had been but only shared that I had taken a drive to clear my head. The next few days I wasn’t feeling any new symptoms just the constant struggle to breathe normally and exhaustion with simple tasks. Tuesday morning I got the call. It rang and I knew what they were about to tell me. At this point, I was out of the woods and whatever the results were, I had overcome the worst of it. It was positive.

Jump to a few weeks later. Georgia slowly started opening up but we still weren’t back in our offices. I had done some research and heard about how intravascular plasma was saving patients that were severely ill with COVID-19. Atlanta Blood Services was a local platelet donation center that opening their seats to recovered COVID-19 patients to donate their plasma. I immediately signed up and they got me in 2 days later. They had a round of questions and tests they needed to do before I could donate. I sat down with the research technician and they walked me through the questions – how did you get it, date of last symptom, etc. They then tested me again for COVID-19 to make sure I wasn’t still contagious, it came back negative. They then took a sample of blood from my left arm to test for the antibodies, which came back positive. They then guided me to the donation chair and I sat there for about 2 hours. I couldn’t help but watch the tubes take the blood out of my arm, recycle it inside this very noisy machine, push this yellow type liquid into these bags hanging above my chair (the plasma), and then the machine pushes the red blood back into my body. It was truly amazing seeing what medicine was doing to defeat this pandemic. I continue to go back every two weeks to donate my plasma.  

Now, fully recovered, I look back and am thankful this happened to me. I am thankful I didn’t develop phenomena. I am thankful of the person I found within myself. I am thankful I found my faith when I needed it the most. The world has a funny way of making you realize your purpose on earth. COVID-19 led me to my faith, which allowed me to see what I want my future to be. I wake up every day with a positive attitude, thankful to see what the future has in store for me, striving to have an open mind and heart. I found myself with the wrong priorities before and made it a goal to push myself to find what I love to do every day – at home and at work. I started this story with the idea that 2020 was worse than 2019. I move forward with 2020 with a new outlook and perspective. I couldn’t be more grateful for where this bumpy road has led me. Thank you, for opening my eyes.