My partner, recently became infected with Coronavirus and started showing very mild symptoms four weeks ago. This is the first week, he has started to feel more like himself.
Joe is 37, healthy, works out 3-4 times a week, doesn’t smoke, drinks lightly on the weekends and has no underlying medical conditions. His experience with the virus has been a long, tiring and scary journey. I hope by sharing this post that it will help people to understand that it is not just an ‘old person’s virus’ and that you don’t need to have an underlying medical condition to be affected severely.
In addition, we hope that by outlining the symptoms that Joe experienced and the length of time that these were experienced for, will bring a level of understanding and comfort to anyone who is going through the same experience, especially those who are experiencing this alone and do not have a cheerleader/nurse to help them through it all. For those who it effects for a long period of time, it is as much of a mental battle as it is a physical battle, and we hope that this brings you comfort – there is indeed, light at the end of the tunnel, all will pass soon and you will be so much more grateful for your health coming out of it all.
We hope that this post encourages people to stay home during the requested periods of isolation.
What was his symptoms?
Day 1-4: The first few days, the symptoms were manageable. Joe felt tired and run down, with a slight headache and nausea and spent all of his time in bed. He did not have the trademark cough or fever, so we just put it down to him feeling under the weather. He slept in another bedroom, just in case it was a cold/flu and he didn’t want to pass it to me.
Day 5-6: The nausea and headache had subsided, but a light feeling of breathlessness had started to begin and the feeling of tiredness remained.
Day 7: In the morning Joe felt much better and his symptoms had subsided. As he still hadn’t had a cough or fever, we put it down to him just feeling run down. In the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk in the fields and after walking 50 meters Joe felt out of breath and returned home to rest. I continued on my walk and after 20 mins, Joe rang me asking me to come back and urgently call the Ambulance as he couldn’t breathe. I stayed on the phone to him whilst running back home and all I could hear was him struggling to breathe. When I arrived home he was struggling to breathe and his body was shaking violently all over. I rang for an Ambulance and they said they would arrive in 40 mins. Whilst waiting I took his temperature and he did not have a fever, but his body still continued to shake violently all over and he was gasping for air. After 40 mins the shakes became less often and his breathing returned to a steadier pace – still shallow – but steadier and remained for the rest of the day.
Day 8: Joe was struggling to breathe throughout the day and had bad chest pain. By the afternoon, he was gasping to breathe again and the shakes had returned. His whole body was shaking violently and the gasps for breath were more frequent. We rang for the Ambulance and as this was the second call, they arrived within 15 mins. They confirmed that were unable to take Joe to the hospital “unless he was going blue” – and there wasn’t much they could do for him even if he was at hospital, other than give him paracetamol and keep him hydrated. I was already making sure he was drinking lots of water, hot drinks regularly, medication systematically and trying to feed him as much as he could eat, so they decided he was better kept at home. Notably, there was no testing offered as they said they were only testing those who were at hospital or took themselves to A&E.
Day 9-13: Joe couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat because he felt so sick, had diarrhoea, a severe headache, periods of hallucination, his chest felt on fire, and a felt like he was unable to take a deep enough breath. It was scary for him and went on for a long time, which mentally was a struggle as it felt as if things were only going to get worse and never better. All of his symptoms would come in intense waves, all at once or several at the same time. The waves were the biggest mental challenge as he would start to feel as if his symptoms were easing and then, there would be another intense wave of symptoms that would last for hours. There were many dark moments.
Day 14: All the symptoms remained and Joe had become very weak as he was unable to keep food down and had been eating just dry bread. He also had only slept for a few hours each night, for many days. After several days of ‘on and off’ gasping for breath, the ‘violent all over body shaking’ returned, we called for the Ambulance again. The Emergency Services came and did all of the necessary observations – they said they could take him to the ‘COVID-19 pod’ (by himself) to be tested, but it wouldn’t change his situation and what he would be given there would not be different to the treatment he was experiencing at home. We made the decision together for him to stay at home, as going to the hospital would mean he would be by himself and the treatment there wouldn’t be any different.
Day 15-16: The same symptoms remained but they were not as strong as the previous week. Joe no longer had nausea and was able to eat plain food and was able to get a minimum of 6 hours sleep per night.
Day 17-21: Most of Joe’s symptoms had gone and his appetite began to return. The shortness of breath and chest pain still remained, along with strutgling to walk up and down the stairs.
Current day (Day 28): Thankfully Joe is so much better. He still has a pain in his chest ‘on and off’ and struggles to walk long distances. However after being bed bound for just over 2 weeks, this is to be expected.
Takeaway Thoughts
This was the experience of a healthy young individual, we cannot even imagine how then this would be experienced by the older generation or a person with an underlying medical condition, or both. I hope that by reading this post, that it drives home the point that we all need to think, before we go out, potentially to be within 2 meters distance of someone and ask ourselves, is our trip truly necessary/essential? We need to think beyond our own front door, to the older person down the road, to the person in the supermarket that we pass in the aisle who lives with someone with a lung condition or undergoing chemotherapy. There will be a time when we can step outside our doors freely and ‘come and go’ as we please, and oh what a time that will be! But for now we all need to play our part and try to minimise the devastation of this virus – as you really do not know who this will effect severely.
Thank you for reading our post – we hope that this highlights how important it is to stick to the rules that the government has imposed – for the benefits of EVERYONE and not just the ‘old’ and ‘vulnerable’ groups. Please share this post with anyone who you think will benefit from reading it and especially if you know of anyone who is going through the long stretch of the virus currently – especially those who may be battling this by themselves.
We hope you and your family remain safe and well during this time xxx