March 27 at 9:17 PM ·
Hi Everyone,
First of all, I want to thank everyone for the thoughts, prayers, well wishes and gestures of kindness. They have warmed my heart more than you'll ever know.
I wanted to give a daily outline of my personal experience with the coronavirus. Both Paige and I have been asked questions about my story so I felt that if I shared it, then it would help answer some of those questions. I'm not posting this for sympathy or comments but for knowledge. Please feel free to share this and ask me or Paige any further questions.
Hopefully, I continue to improve daily but since no one knows what will happen, I have been told by the doctors that I should expect the worst but hope for the best. So here's hoping!
Wednesday 3/18 - Not sleeping. Not a lot of energy. Headache. No fever.
Thursday 3/19 - Not sleeping. Less energy. Dry cough started late in the evening. Shortness of breath. Headache. No fever.
Friday 3/20 - Not sleeping. No energy. No appetite. Unable to catch my breath at all. Dry cough. Headache. No fever. Called nurse line and they recomended going to ER. The ER checked me in (with no fever) around 6pm. Tested for everything under the sun including Covid19. They did a chest xray as well, which showed bilateral lower lobe pneumonia. By 8pm I had a temp of 103.5. I was admitted to the hospital and they started me on IV antibiotics after bloodwork showed some kind of infection. They gave me Tylenol for my headache. They would not give me Advil or Motrin until they heard back from the corona test, because they believe that Advil/Motrin fuels the virus. All I mostly remember is being unable to catch my breath. I was never ventilated Friday night.
Saturday 3/21 - The day is mostly a blur. I still could not breathe. My fever from the night before was gone. No appetite. All I could do is lay still and concentrate on taking the shortest breaths possible so I wouldn't start coughing and lose my breath. At 6:30, I received the call I will never forget for the rest of my life. Less than 24 hours after being tested, I received a call from the Calvert County Health Dept that I was positive for Coronavirus. As bad as that call was, I had to make the worst call of my life. I had to call my wife and let her know I tested positive for Coronavirus. We cried for a few minutes together and then I had to hang up because I couldn't catch my breath. From 6:30 for the next 6 hours, I saw no one. I was alone with my thoughts. No family, no doctors, no nurses. My IVs were empty and the alarms beeped as the hospital figured out what their next steps were as they waited for special gowns and other gear. I was only the 2nd confirmed case in the county.
Sunday 3/22 - This day was also pretty much a blur. No fever. Still had the dry cough. My headache turned into a migraine and affected my head, neck and shoulders for about 24 hours. After the Covid-19 diagnosis, all antiobiotics and treatments were stopped except for cough pearls and Tylenol for my headache. All day, I either slept or tried to lay as still as possible in a dark room to control my breathing. I still had no appetite. The hospital's goal was to have my breathing under control enough to send me home.
Monday 3/23 - No fever. No appetite. Still a dry cough. Had a chest xray done, which was be compared to Friday's xray. While there was no sign of improvement on the xray, there was no worsening either. At this point, the doctors determined that I could continue to fight this while in isolation at home. The nurses and Health Dept coordinated with Paige for her to leave quarantine to pick me up. She pulled up to the ER entrance and a nurse brought me to Paige's car. Paige never even got out of her car when she picked me up. We left and came straight home. It was the hardest walk of my life from the car, into the house and down a flight of steps to the basement. Paige and the boys had set up the basement for my isolation. Seeing the fear in my son's faces as they watched me struggle for every breath will stay with me forever. Paige sent them back upstairs and she finished getting me settled. It felt like forever until my breathing calmed enough for me to sleep.
Tuesday 3/24 - No fever. No appetite. Slight headache. Dry cough any time I moved the slightest. Walking the 10 steps to the bathroom was exhausting. My breathing was about the same. I could not take a deep breath without coughing. I could barely finish a full sentence before coughing uncontrollably.
Wednesday 3/25 - No fever. Slight headache. Cough is improving but still present. This is the first day I can feel the improvement in my breathing - it's only a slight improvement but still an improvement. I drank an entire protein shake for lunch - the first food I felt like eating in days. I had half of a small bowl of pasta and chicken for dinner.
Thursday 3/26 - No fever. No appetite until late in the day. Major headache. My breathing has slightly improved. Today is the most exhausted I have been since Monday. I slept close to 20 hours. I was up long enough to weigh myself and see that I had lost 40 lbs in one week. I had a pb&j for dinner.
Friday 3/27 - Here we are today. No fever. Slight headache still. Cough still around but getting better. I can have a conversation and not cough my way through it. I can walk to the bathroom and back and while tiring, is not exhausting anymore. I ate all of my lunch and dinner for the first time this week.
We'll see how the next days go. I can only hope to continue improving. Thanks again for all your love and support.
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