2020. Such a weird year for everyone, but for me, it had the best day of my life (on the left, my engagement) and the worst day of my life (on the right, hospitalized in the ICU with COVID)
This is my COVID-19 story.
Today, November 24th, marks one month since day one of the COVID symptoms. One month ago, I would have never guessed that I’d be where I am right now. My life has completely been flipped upside down, and changed by having COVID-19. However, I sit here writing this, completely thankful and grateful for my life. My experience with COVID-19 was, by far, the most difficult thing, mentally and physically, that I have ever gone through in my entire life. This is nowhere near a perfect, grammatically correct piece of writing, so please bear with me. It’s the most “together” my thoughts have been in weeks. This story is raw. This story is real. I simply want to tell my story to show people how silently this virus can rob a healthy, 26-year old from their life that will never be the same again.
The first week of my COVID symptoms, I felt like I had a bad case of the flu. Body aches, horrible fevers, headaches, congestion, cough, loss of taste and smell, the whole 9 yards. I wasn’t sleeping because my fevers were so frequent, but I was exhausted. It wasn’t until Halloween (day 7 of symptoms), when my pulse oximeter from Amazon arrived, that I knew things were turning a corner for the worst. Honestly, it was the arrival of that pulse oximeter from Amazon that saved my life. I put it on, and it read 88%. I looked at Josh and told him he needed to take me to the emergency room. By the time I was in the ER, my oxygen saturation was 82%. Looking back on that day, the scariest part was that I didn’t feel that short of breath - nothing compared to what I experienced in the days after that. With a 103.5 fever, heart rate of 140, a chest CT showing severe bilateral infiltrates consistent with pneumonia, and inflammation marker labs off the charts (for those medical people who are curious, my CRP was 190 and d-dimer was 1.0), I bought myself a hospital admission and was started on Remdesivir and IV decadron. I spent the next few days on the medical/surgical floor at M Health Fairview Ridges Hospital, my oxygen requirements increasing as the hours went by. I went from being able to get up on my own to use the bathroom to getting short of breath just readjusting in bed in a matter of hours. At this point, fear and loneliness consumed my thoughts. I wasn’t able to have any visitors due to COVID restrictions, and my care team, rightfully so, would limit their amount of time in my room to limit their exposure to the virus, which left me alone in a closed hospital room 90% of the time. I was too short of breath to talk or FaceTime with my fiancé and family. I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen tomorrow, let alone in the next few hours, and neither did anyone else. This virus is unpredictable. As a former ICU nurse, I was well aware of where I was heading as my lungs started to give out.
By November 2nd, I was up to 12 liters of oxygen on an oxymizer mask and was made intermediate care status due to my care requirements. Early morning on November 3rd, my oxygen saturation took a nosedive into the 70s on 15L of oxygen, and I was placed on BiPAP at 100% FiO2. I was transferred to the ICU with intentions of intubation and central line placement. Looking back, I wish I could remember how I was feeling in that moment, but I can’t. I was aware of what the road looked like in my immediate future, but I was numb - emotionless. I think the nurse in me took over, and I started looking at myself as my own patient, focusing on all of the technical details and informing my family, in the most straightforward way possible, what was happening. The next few days in the ICU were some of the worst days of my life. The photo in my post is from November 7th, one of the worst days I had in the ICU. I was able to avoid intubation, but I came close one too many times. Too many times that I wanted to give up and tell my nurse that I couldn’t do it anymore. Too many times that I almost wrote a goodbye letter to my fiance and my family. Too many times that it was so hard to breathe, even with the BiPAP mask on, that I wanted to beg my nurse to please intubate me so that I don’t have to feel this way anymore. Too many times thinking to myself “if I’m sedated, it’ll take all the pain away and I won’t have to remember feeling this way.” Too many times staring off into space, alone in my hospital room, mind empty with no ability to concentrate, and my desaturation alarm going off because I was forgetting to breathe. Too many times texting my family, sugar-coating things to help them not worry so much, saying “I’m staying strong” when really, I was at my weakest.
But all it took, on Sunday November 8th, was a simple gesture from my nurse. She held my hand, as my respirations were in the 30s and I was crying, and said “I’ve been taking care of COVID patients for 8 months now. I promise you will get through this, you are strong.” She opened my blinds, helped me bathe, and simply told me “today is going to be a good day.” That was the turning point for me. By Tuesday November 11th, the day I like to call my “complete 180 day”, I was 24 hours BiPAP free, and went from a high flow nasal cannula down to a normal nasal cannula on 4 liters of oxygen by the end of the day. The following day, I was transferred out of the ICU, and by Friday, November 13th, I was discharging home on 2 liters of oxygen. I will never forget the moment I was wheeled out of the hospital, my first breath of fresh air in two weeks, and seeing my fiance Josh there waiting, followed by the best hug I’ve ever received. Going home was a huge step for me considering how sick I was a week prior to that, but nowhere near the end of my journey.
My recovery the last week and a half at home has been difficult and full of ups and downs, just as the previous 2 weeks in the hospital were, but in a different way. After I was discharged, I was on a positive attitude high, and was convinced that I was going to start feeling better so quickly and bounce back now that I was home. I was wrong. This journey has continued to be very slow with recovery, and as a healthy 26-year old, it has been so frustrating. I envy how easily and quickly Josh can move around the house, and how easy it is for him to go up a flight of stairs. For me, simply showering and getting dressed each day is a work out that leaves me feeling like I just ran 5 miles. I have had to teach myself how to walk again, and rebuild all of my strength that I lost while I was in the hospital. I still have a cough and some congestion, even on day 30 of this. I continue to have issues sleeping, as well as difficulty concentrating. It takes my lungs a good 30-45 minutes each morning to adjust from laying down to being upright, and I still am requiring oxygen today. My life is nowhere near back to normal yet, but I continue to make baby steps of progress each day. My primary doctor reminded me the other day: “your body just fought for your life, cut yourself some slack.” Just as it has been since day 1, the rest of my journey is unknown. I have no idea what my new “normal” life will look like, and what long term effects I will have from this. I often think about when I will be able to work out again, and it’s tough to realize that day may be months away.
But as much as my thoughts are consumed by frustrations with my current physical limitations, I continue to think about how grateful I am to be where I am today, and for the support I received from friends, family, and my healthcare team throughout this whole process. I cannot thank everyone enough for all of the thoughts and prayers, meals, and gifts. And to my healthcare team and nurses, as well as my fellow healthcare workers, I will never be able to have the right words to express how thankful I am for you. As a nurse myself, being on the other end as a patient, it truly is the simple, small things that make the biggest impact. I admire the continued strength and perseverance from healthcare workers as this pandemic continues. Their current work conditions are far from fair, which breaks my heart. Their lack of PPE, being forced to use the same N95 mask for days, is unacceptable. It has to change, because they are the ones saving lives right now. As we head into this holiday weekend full of thankful thoughts, please remember what’s important to you. I know that everyone is so tired of social distancing, masks, and hearing about the coronavirus. Believe me, so am I, but guess what, it’s still out there, impacting so many people’s lives unexpectedly. There is no way to tell if you, or your grandmother, or your uncle, will be part of the small percentage of the severe cases. Please be safe this holiday season. Please protect your loved ones. If I picked up COVID from a group of 6 people, so can you.
Please feel free to share my story if you’d like to!