My family and I weren’t planning to have a normal Thanksgiving this year, but what happened was certainly unexpected.
I woke up to my 4-year-old poking me to get out of bed. Minutes later, while standing in my bathroom, I felt a sudden bout of nausea come over me and then nothing.
I woke up with my wife hovered over me. She was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. I had blacked out, fell backwards, and hit my head on the wall. My head was bleeding a bit, I was confused, and I was having a really difficult time breathing.
The day before, I had felt a bit off — enough so I left downstairs away from my wife and son — but nothing severe that made me think I needed to go to the hospital.
Well, a day later, I was headed to the ER. The ambulance showed up as I lay on the bathroom floor. My wife was a mess trying to help me while also realizing I was now clearly showing symptoms of COVID-19. The responders went through some testing, found that the cut on my head wasn’t bad and though my temperature was a little high, I didn’t have a significant fever.
I felt groggy and just generally strange with everything I was feeling in my body. Shortness of breath, chills, headache and aches all over. The EMT’s used a nifty contraption to get me down our second floor stairs and out the front door to the stretcher. We passed my son sitting on the couch, looking on as he tried to figure out what the heck was going on with his dad.
After a 30-minute ride and multiple tests in the back of the ambulance I had arrived at the ER. The entire way there, it was a constant battle of sweating and then being cold, and that process over and over in 15-minute intervals. Unfortunately, something I would come to get used to over the next week or so.
As I lay in the hospital bed (for the first time in my life), lots of things were going through my mind. Do I have COVID-19? Why did I black out? If I have it, what’s next?
After the nurse checked my head and gave me an EKG test, they finally swabbed my nose for a COVID-19 test and told me I would have a result in an hour. There I lay again in the bed with my wife seemingly out in the car (they told me no one was allowed in) and without my cellphone. Back to wondering what the heck was next and why I was hurting all over and why I was having such a hard time with something as simple as breathing.
About an hour later, the nurse poked her head in to say that I had tested positive. After a while, the doctor came in to tell me I had COVID-19 and that I needed to quarantine. That was the extent of the information I was given. They gave me a paper with my test results on it, pointed me towards the front door and I was on my way.
My wife was in the parking lot waiting for me and was confused by why I was coming out. We struggled with wondering if she should get tested right away, where she could get tested, and what we were going to do next.
After talking to multiple nurses in the family and searching on the CDC website, we decided that I would go into an isolation room away from my wife and son. So, we got home and my wife set up a twin bed in what I essentially was using as a storage room at the time downstairs (mostly storage for my sports cards and memorabilia).
I was going to stay in there the entire 14 days and my wife would follow all the suggestions from the experts we had talked to about how she could take care of me.
It was a rough first day in isolation, my head hurt and I was still having a hard time breathing. Sleeping was a struggle. I couldn’t get comfortable because my entire body was sore and I was sweating all the time, so I finally decided to take Tylenol to see if that would help.
I quickly found out that sleep and lots of water were my two new best friends.
My wife reached out to my close family and friends to tell them what happened. She helped communicate with my work as I really wasn’t up for much communication yet. And the room I was being isolated in had almost no cellphone reception.
The first couple days, all I did was watch TV and communicate the best I could with my everyday job and everyone at MMO to keep them up to speed. I had no energy, all I wanted to do was lay down, but that got pretty uncomfortable after a few days.
A few more days in, and I was really starting to miss human interaction. I missed playing with my son and I missed hugging my wife. We used Facebook messenger video to have virtual dinners together and so I could read my son books at bedtime, but it just wasn’t the same.
Luckily for me, unlike others that have dealt with COVID-19, my taste buds were pretty much in-tact besides coffee making me gag. My family was kind enough to deliver groceries to us on the front steps a few times so we could have fresh food. And the wonderful people at MMO sent me a basket of fruit and chocolate. I do most of the dinner planning and cooking in our house, so it was a big added stress for my wife to overtake all of that on top of everything else.
My buddy, who is a Navy doctor, walked me through learning how to box-breath and that was a huge help. Once I was up to it, we also figured out a plan that allowed me to go outside for fresh air while not potentially exposing anyone in the house hold. It was glorious, that first time I stepped outside to breathe that crisp Maine air, it helped so much. Not just breathing, but to make me feel a bit normal.
Now a week in and my symptoms started to dissipate as long as I kept up with drinking water and sleep. I started having the energy to organize my cards better – something my wife had been hounding me to do for months. I would go outside and walk around the house, the exercise helped me feel better and I didn’t want to feel even more sore from all the laying on a bed.
As I started to feel better physically, the mental toll of not being around my wife, son, and dog was starting to mount. On top of that, was money. Look, we all have to pay the bills and the world isn’t stopping because I’m sick. It was a struggle with my work, they made it clear they weren’t going to pay for all of my time out and suggested I file for unemployment. The thought felt weird at first, I had never done it before and also knew there was no guarantee I would get anything. (Note – I still haven’t heard from the Department of Labor with anything definitive).
Nine days in, I was starting to feel much better. No more severe shortness of breath, temperature regulation was back to normal, and my headaches had calmed down. I was starting to get back to work on MMO, it felt good to contribute again and be able to help out.
The next couple of days was about making a plan for when I got out of isolation. I was feeling close to 100 percent and getting anxious to get out of my dungeon. My work was requiring a negative test and note from my doctor to get back to work. I checked with my insurance and found the closest place to test that would be covered and scheduled for the morning I would be out. It felt like light at the end of the tunnel.
I was feeling fine the last couple of days outside of missing caffeine – I found out early in this fight that coffee made me gag – and struggling with the continued isolation from human beings. I kept myself as busy as I could, planning for my time out and talking to my Lincoln through video as much as possible.
Finally, my time of being alone in a room had come to an end. I was excited, but also anxious and nervous about coming out. I wanted to be as cautious as possible, we had been lucky enough that no one else in my family had gotten sick and I wish for that to continue.
The first day out was relieving and nerve-wrecking at the same time. Getting to hug my son after not seeing him for so long was one of the happiest times of my life. Getting to kiss my wife after she had done so much for me throughout the process. She was the one that found me out cold, bleeding from my head on the bathroom floor. She was the one that cooked all my meals. She was the one helping me get through the toughest days.
We then stayed to ourselves for a bit. We wanted to be cautious and also cognizant of how others might feel being around me. We decorated the Christmas tree, watched Elf, and played outside in the snow.
After a few days, my test results from my post-quarantine swab had came back, positive again. That meant not going back to work quite yet and more questions than answers. I was worried about how many tests would my insurance cover (thankfully I was eventually told unlimited), how many more days of work would I miss without pay, and just a general what the heck is next. I talked it over with my work and scheduled the next test I could. I was told I could test positive up to 90 days, which certainly wasn’t the news I was looking for.
I impatiently, and stressfully, waited for the next test results to come back. Finally, they read negative, and a great sigh of relief came over me. That was until I called my primary care doctor to get the note I needed for work. I was told since I hadn’t needed to see them in a few years, that I wasn’t an active patient and a new patient setup could take weeks. Screw me for being healthy, right?
Back to being stressed (and at this point pretty ticked off) about what I was going to do next. My brother-in-law worked at a local facility that took walk-ins and suggested I try there for a note. So, I drove the 30 miles and hoped it would all work out. A couple hours later and I finally had a note to go back to work along with a negative test.
Thanksgiving used to be one of my favorite holidays. Pretty tough to argue with football, family, food and beer. Then on Dec. 22, I was finally back to normal. Or at least that’s what it feels like now to be back at work. Though some people I normally talk to at work avoid me like the plaque (tough to blame them), it’s good to be back after almost a full month out.
My fight with COVID-19 was one that started with physical pain, endured many different stresses, but ultimately I’m luckier than some that I got to return to work and be with my family.
I can’t thank my fellow writers at MMO, the great people of Mets Twitter, and my incredible wife, enough for all of their support.
Folks, please wear a mask and be safe, I don’t want any of you to go through what I did.
