Phil's Battle with Covid19

Prologue

I am memorializing my ordeal battling the sickness brought on by the Corornavirus (“Covid-19”) 1) because I survived it, 2) because it’s an important story to share and 3) it has helped me in my emotional recover from the disease. Prior to contracting the virus, I was in excellent health. I was (still am) neither elderly, sick or otherwise compromised prior to acquiring the virus. Even though my case represents 2% or less of all cases of those contracting the virus, even healthy people are not immune from the virus’ potentially lethal grip.

Act 1: The Virus Bites – The Fever

My illness began innocuously enough: a tickle in my throat and slight feverish symptoms. The “slight” aspect of the feverish symptoms quickly transitioned to “highly elevated” within 4 days of the initial onset of symptoms. Within that period of time, I had become legitimately sick. In fact, I was feeling so lousy that I had no motivation to get on my bike to go for a ride, which, for me, is very unusual … and troubling. 

During the first full week of the illness, as I sat alone in the house, the fever spiked relentlessly, typically at night. It crested as high as 103-104. I battled that same high fever for a full week, even enduring an aborted 911 call which resulted in a visit by paramedics who refused to enter the house, not even to check out my vitals, much less take me for additional medical care. The only thing they were able to offer was the national wide news to “Shelter in Place.”

Heading the advice of the paramedics, I continued my quarantine at the house entering week 2 of the illness where I bore witness to a slight abatement of the fever’s original intensity. Instead of spiking to 104, the fever seemed content to torment me with temperatures around 102, occasionally 103, but with Tylenol in my system, the fever’s grip relented to 99-100. This aggravating pattern lasted a full two weeks. Other side effects of the illness: an utter dread of nightfall – the worst of the virus seemed to happen at night, loneliness, and sleeplessness.

In that time things started to swirl into a deluge of difficulties. I had stopped eating and the sickness toyed with me sometimes teasing me with hope that I had turned a corner and I was improving and on the back end of the virus’ grip. Also, within those first two weeks, I had been tested for the Coronavirus and was informed that I was indeed harboring the deadly disease. 

Desperately, and ignorantly, hoping that I only had a “mild” case of Coronavirus, I began to notice that during the last few days of my full second week that my breathing was becoming more labored. This was certainly an unwelcome development. Within 3-4 days of becoming more and more breathless, and panicked, came the collapse of my airways. 

Act 2: The Virus Stings – Airway Collapse

On Saturday morning April 4, 2020, I struggled to breathe! My chest was heaving to collect even small amounts air, all while I was simply sitting on my couch. I could no longer ignore it, I was in serious trouble, knew it and knew I needed help. The sickness had progressed to a point where I was no longer capable of caring for myself. It was terrifying not being able to breathe. I was distressing on top of the terror I was trying manage. I called my wife to sanity check whether I should call 911. In her eyes there was no ambiguity: “Make the damn call!” Calling for 911 as I grasped for air, reminding myself that I wouldn’t let the illness beat me.

This time, as I waited for the paramedics, I shuffled around the house to put a shirt on, grab my tooth brush, find a charge cord for my phone and then put what little I could gather into a plastic grocery bag. Slowly I walked, breathlessly, towards the bench by my front door. This time, I was not going to debate or negotiate with the paramedics to take me to the hospital, I needed help immediately.

The same paramedic who had showed up at the house a week earlier in response to my first 911 call showed up a second time. As if acting on script, he expressed an unwillingness to take me to the hospital. There was no negotiation of discussion on my end: my wife, still on speaker on my phone, gave him an earful. He relented. I was able to walk from my front door to the ambulance parked on the street. Oxygen tubes were placed into my nose on entry to the ambulance, which lessened my struggle for air. Off we went, virus and all.

Watching the trajectory of the ambulance, I knew immediately where it was taking me: Naples Community Hospital (“NCH”), which is the closest hospital to my house; I had read that patients eligible to be taken to a hospital had no say in where they would be taken. I was relieved to be going to NCH.

Thank goodness I sought immediate medical attention: when I got to the emergency room, I was taken into the building through a side door and immediately my vitals were measured. At that point my oxygenation level, with oxygen in the ambulance and in the ER, was registering at a dismal and life threatening 80. It felt like my body was gestating less violently at this point, but, as it turns out, an oxygen reading of 80 still puts you at risk of major organ failure. It mattered little: I was beginning to relax a bit, knowing I was getting the care I desperately needed. 

Looking back at the moments leading up to the 911 call, and the subsequent trip to the hospital, I realized that I likely wouldn’t have survived the day had I not called 911 and sought medical attention. I would have suffered major organ failure, whether it would be the heart, brain, etc…, which was unknown, but what it was absolutely terrified me. In fact, this illness has challenged my will to live; it has been one of the most miserable experiences of my life. 

Act 3: The Patient Fights Back - The Hospitalization

In total I spent 11 days in the hospital, five of which were in intensive care (“ICU”). My care consisted of high flow oxygen during the day, a 5-day diet of azithromycin (to treat the infection in my lungs caused by the virus and hydroxychloroquine (the anti-malarial drug being used to thwart the virus’ ability to attach to cells in the lungs and other parts of the body). 

In addition to the two aforementioned drugs, I was surviving on high-flow oxygen during the day. At night, I transitioned to continuous positive airway pressure (“CPAP”) machine to force more oxygen into my lungs to help them expand. Luckily, I was never intubated, or put on a ventilator. However, the first two days in ICU, the doctors told me that if I didn’t show sufficient improvement in my oxygenation, a ventilator was likely. 

After 5 days in ICU, my condition had improved such that I was transferred out of ICU to another floor of the hospital where the goal of the care was to induce my body to wean off the constant oxygen. The reduction of oxygen as part of the weaning process seemed interminable. Some days, it seemed as if my progress had stagnated. Eventually, though, it improved.

Within a day, I went from 6 liters of oxygen to the complete removal of all tubes. The removal of the oxygen, while welcome, was a stressful because I still struggled for air when I got up to go to the bathroom. During these moments my heart rate would shoot up and my lungs struggled to accept enough air. The only way to abate these frightening symptoms and stabilize my body was to seek the nearest chair and sit down. While these reactions shocked me, I found my body quickly started to stabilize and I became aware of the small victories associated attending the restroom on my own. 

Act 4: The Virus’ Venom Is Very Toxic - Blood Clots

When I transitioned from ICU to a downgraded state, I noticed that my damaged leg (the one that had been shattered a year previously when a truck t-boned me on my bike, knocking me unconscious) was beginning to throb. What the f%&k?! I simply thought it was my leg’s reaction to the previous three week’s inactivity. As it turned out, blood clots had formed in the leg, induced by the virus – another unwelcome and horrifying side effect. The inactivity merely exacerbated the condition.

Thank goodness for the day nurse that cared for me for most of my time in non-ICU. He pushed for an ultrasound, which I ended up getting, and which revealed the presence of the clots. The medical reason for the throbbing was now clearly identified; the doctors were able to establish treatment for yet another malady this virus had brought along. Unfortunately, I will be taking blood thinners for at least 6 months to rid my body of the clotting: a long-term reminder of the traumas I have endured during the months of April. I also won’t know for a year whether I have permanent lung damage or what the side effects of the medication I was given will result in heart or vision issues. Ugh!

Act 5 - The Survivor

On April 14, after 11 days in the hospital, I was finally discharged. The hospital arranged for an ambulance to take me home. This time, however, as I looked out the back windows of the ambulance, retracing the same routes that I had taken on my trip to the hospital I found a peacefulness within this trip back to the house. Another small victory!

I was a little nervous going back to the house. After all, I was returning to a place with recent life-threatening memories which resulted in instant anxiety. As those memories filled my mind, recollecting the fever spiking at night and the eventual collapse of my ability to breathe, I knew it was part and parcel of the emotional healing I needed to embrace. So, that peacefulness evaporated and it all became nerve-racking.

Now, in my third full day out of the hospital, and being back at the house, I feel great, liberated too! I’ve been able to go for walks; I never knew how much enjoyment could come from such a simple thing. In fact, on my second full day at home, I logged 8.5 miles walking – not all at one time, but in increased and measured time outside. In the course of this nearly 4-week ordeal, I managed to lose 20 pounds. I now weigh a kid-like 145 lbs.

Act 6: Epilogue and Acknowledgments

First, I would be remiss if I didn’t extend a major thank you to all my family members and friends who religiously and daily checked in me to see how I was doing. Even though the hospital didn’t allow visitors, the constant text messages and calls reduced my stress level and lessened the loneliness. I’d also like to thank my friends here in Naples, FL that willingly shopped for my groceries and brought me my prescriptions.

Second, I would like to thank all the health care workers that specifically nursed me back to health and cared for me, nurses and doctors alike. We are so fortunate to have people whose life’s work is to care and improve the health of people they don’t know.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all the people on this planet who are suffering, whether physically, emotionally, or financially. I empathize with their struggles, especially those who don’t have the same level of support and love of friends and family. I am fortunate because I have family and friends. 

I am also fortunate to have survived the current global pandemic; I think I’ve gotten much sympathy because the Coronavirus pandemic is fully engrained in our collective consciousness thanks to all the media attention it’s been receiving. Nevertheless, I am so sorry for those who suffer alone and in silence, whose stories and whose suffering will never be known or documented. 

Never in my life have I been as sick … or as scared. I’ve often believed that the line between life and death is a narrow one. As I was fighting for air, that line seemed especially thin. Luckily, I can now claim to be a survivor! I am so happy and grateful to be alive to recount a story of a really shitty time in my life. I am also fortunate that during this struggle I believed, and hoped that I would not be beaten. Every little bit of hope I mustered helped me immensely.