I was so sure that I would be the one to bring home the sickness. “The Sickness” is what our Amish neighbors called the virus. But it was late afternoon on a Saturday in early December when Warren asked me to bring home a test as he was feeling a bit off with a funny tickle in his throat. That was the week there had been a definite increase in cases in his direct department at work.
I stopped multiple places but all tests were sold out. This was the first sign that this may not go smoothly but we didn’t know that yet.
By Monday we were both running fevers and went to the Doctor for drive through tests. On the way home the nurse called to confirm Warren’s rapid test was as positive as could be. They put him on the two possible lists to get in for monoclonal antibodies. This had been my plan….knowing so many friends and family members with risk factors who had responded so well to this treatment. Sadly, we were not able to receive the antibodies due to such a rush on the only TWO locations in the area. Such a sad failure in the medical system.
Honestly I have little memory of our illness until the Saturday morning I woke early and was in the living room. I suddenly spiraled into a horrible sweat and tunnel vision. I made it to the kitchen to check my blood sugar. It was not out of my usual morning range and that’s the last I remember until Warren was yelling at me to wake up. I went from standing at the counter to going directly backward hitting the back of my head. Hard!
As he got me awake he told me my heart and oxygen rates were super low. I suggested we move to the living room. He said ok but I would have to give him a second because he felt terrible. He described it and I recommended that he lay down beside me. He started to and then we both realized that would be a horrible idea. I believe God brought it to our foggy brains that this wasn’t the COVID. He jumped up and threw open the kitchen window. A few deep breaths cleared his head and he opened the garage door by me. I gulped the fresh air and felt the clearing in my body as well.
Still wearing the pulse o2 monitor I walked to the living room where immediately I got dizzy. I looked down at the meter to watch it fall faster than I knew was possible. I yelled at Warren to get out of the house. We both got out. I got in the car. Then Warren decided to clear the house. He used fans and opened every window. He then was able to turn off the propane fireplace which was the cause of the invading gas.
About an hour into the process, still in the car, I found myself fighting to stay awake. Upon feeling the huge bruise that made the back of my head feel a wrong shape I called an ambulance. I didn’t realize in the foggy brain that when I mentioned carbon monoxide we would get all the help. Fire, police and ambulance.
I have to insert here several things that stand out to us as factors that we are alive today. First, the virus woke me early every day. Or we might have slept to our deaths. The alarms never went off. Secondly, when I woke early I always closed all doors between the living room and bedroom to let Warren sleep. Otherwise he might have been overcome in bed and not able to come to my rescue. Third, apparently after checking my sugar I hadn’t let go of the monitor yet because it hitting the floor along with the sound of my head hitting the floor woke Warren through all of the closed doors and his apnea machine.
The emt’s checked me out and put me on oxygen until my tachy heart settled below 100. They checked my lungs and declared them clear.
The fire company declared the house safe to return to.
One crisis down.
From this point on my virus experience went downhill. The doctor put me on concussion protocol meaning no phone or visual media. Ugh. But I cooperated for a while. The back of my head was seriously impacted. It would be more than six weeks before it was no longer tender to the touch.
Now that my resistance had taken such a hit pneumonia set in. I just couldn’t get better. Every day was worse. Finally on day 11 our doctor was willing to see me in person and then sent me for lung imaging. Pneumonia was confirmed. I’m just going to skip over the daily yuck of the next few days until we get to the next Saturday, which was now one week past the carbon monoxide experience.
Early that morning my heart was extremely erratic, I called the doctor and told her I thought it was time to go to the hospital. I had been extremely resistant to this step and she knew it. She called them for me.
By now I was on supplemental oxygen overnight so that helped while we waited.
I remember mostly the compassion of EMT with me in the back of the ambulance. Then I remember the soft spoken and kind doctor in the emergency room.
At some point in the ER I realized I wasn’t on oxygen and asked why. They said my levels were fine without it! Awesome news number one.
The CT scan showed no active bleed in my brain. Awesome news number two.
It did show the COVID Pneumonia. The doctor said he doesn’t know why some people’s scans look like mine and I can get oxygen while others look less impacted and they can’t get oxygen. But he leaned in and looked me in the eye as he said he believed that based on my results and the day I was on that I was currently feeling the worst I was going to feel. I can’t tell you how powerful those words were!
The next week was horrible. But it wasn’t worse. Then slowly things started improving.
At some point during this journey a customer friend who is a retired nurse recommended I use a spirometer to get my lungs working again. It truly helped! This pneumonia wasn’t what you normally think of with lots of mucous and deep coughing. It was the inability to take deep breaths. I describe it as if you had a very tight belt around your lungs. The spirometer seemed to bring progress in training the lungs to open again.
At some point along this timeline after Warren had returned to work….but while he was still very limited in energy…we had one more challenge to deal with. He had gone down to take a shower in the lower level bathroom. I was in the living room and heard water running louder than expected. I wondered why he hadn’t closed the door. lol Next thing I know he was flying up the steps saying water was dripping on his head! A pipe under our upstairs toilet had come apart. In crazy coincidence he had removed the turn off there in anticipation of the remodel we plan to do. So next he was flying back down the stairs to turn off the water.
I shuffled back the hall to the bathroom doorway to watch the throw rug float.
We are so thankful this happened before Warren left for work. It likely would have done much more damage had he not been here. And I was in no condition to go up and down the stairs so that would have been a real problem.
As it was some insulation had to go but with the use of a shop vac normal was restored fairly quickly. The Amish hardware store was open and he was able to get everything fixed up before leaving for work a bit late.
The shop in Lititz ended up closed for the first three weeks of January, which really hurt, but God has restored those losses. We are soooo thankful.
There is so much not in this recounting but those are things I’ll not likely forget…
like how odd I looked while sick. I would stare in the mirror and wonder who that was looking back. Or how many people helped us with food, cards, support. Like the rough early morning hours. Like the insomnia that is only recently resolving. Like the ongoing hair loss.
COVID is a very unusual and strange illness. Insert my political thoughts here on how it came to be.
But God spared our lives. And we get to be alive today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed and I hope I never lose the grateful spirit and desire to make the most of every day!
