Wow , [quote=“Saintly_Loser, post:260, topic:849941, full:true”]
Just updating –
The old man recovered. Amazing. Really amazing. I didn’t expect that. We even pre-paid all his funeral expenses.
An 86-year old diabetic with a history of COPD, no doubt as a result of smoking for thirty years, recovered. Kind of a suprise. A very welcome suprise, but still a surprise.
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Here, we are reaching the point where, while no one very close to me has gotten it, every day almost I either hear someone I know at a distance has it or has had it, or someone I am close to is worried about someone (not just i know a guy who knows a guy). It feels very, very close in Dallas, and I think most of Texas.
My wife gave birth to our third child last night. On Monday she found out a coworker had tested positive. During the week she lost her sense of smell, our other two children developed fevers, and I started feeling off. Her job (a hospital) said she hadn’t been exposed enough to warrant concern. She got tested anyway.
Those results aren’t in yet. So they gave her a rapid test at the hospital which came back positive. We were told the CDC recommend that the baby be separated for two weeks. They didn’t make us go through that but I had to leave to take care of our other kids. That’s only because we couldn’t leave them with who we planned to to minimize the caretakers’ exposure (we’ve already exposed them).
I now have a fever and feel like shit. I’m struggling to take care of my older kids until my wife and baby are discharged tomorrow. It’s not like there’s a danger of their needs not being met. It’s like I’m working with a bad hangover. But if I still feel this bad then, it’s not like having my wife here is going to make it easier for them because of the whole new baby thing.
I’m hoping that part of my problem is how little sleep I’ve gotten due to when she went into labor and also that I’ve at least hit the peak of my symptoms. My test is tomorrow. I feel like it’s pointless except for contact tracing. I’ve only left the house six times since March but one of them was on Monday. It was a vet visit where all contact except with the dog was outdoors, distanced, and masked. The timing and conditions make me think I didn’t spread it to anyone there but I worry.
I’m so sorry you’re all going through this. How frightening and exhausting. Clearly your dear wife WAS exposed enough to ‘warrant concern,’ for heaven’s sake.
Congratulations on your new little person, and good thoughts for all of you as you weather this.
Until a few days ago, I could have said that I did not know anyone who had been diagnosed, but we recently found out that my father had it. And by we, I include my father who is 76.
Back in March as my parents were preparing to travel he collapsed and passed out, but no proximate cause could be found. He went to the hospital with my mother who stayed with him in his room the whole time since no visitors were allowed. Since he did not have any of the classic symptoms he was not tested for COVID-19 and was sent home after an overnight stay. Then the next few months, he went through all kind of tests to figure out what had happened. My father is in good health, watches what he eats and exercises often, so his collapse was troubling. He was given a heart monitor, had his blood pressure tested, etc. It was clear that we was not well and had low energy especially the week after his collapse, but everything they tested for came back negative and all the medicine they gave him had no effect.
Fast forward to a few days ago when they visited my sister for the weekend (she is only a few hours away) and she suggested he get an anti-body test at a nearby clinic. The test came back positive and the doctor who followed up said that an analysis of the results indicated he had the infection a few months back, which is when he collapsed and started feeling (as my father put it) old.
I am glad he survived but a bit peeved that he went through a whole rigmarole of tests and doctors who never once tested him for COVID even though my mother requested it. My mother did not get sick during the interval, though maybe she was too worried about my father to notice.
I am not blaming it, the doctors are saying it is. Yes, it was good that they did tests, but why could they have not done the test that my parents asked for? My father is not the only person who collapsed as a result of COVID-19:
A friend came over for drinks on her birthday last month. I thought we were going to keep distance, but she wanted hugs. Next day she had a bunch of people over to her house for some fried catfish. My wife and I showed up 4 hours late when most everyone had left.
And then the next day our friend had a fever, and a few days after that my wife was coughing and had a fever. I took all my work home and set up a home office just in case. My first full day at home, I started coughing. And then my fever started a few days later.
The wife and I both lost our sense of taste. My first bite of a meal had no flavor, and then black pepper would build up. By the end of a meal I’d feel like I had eaten peppercorns by the spoonful. But that’s all I could taste. Also, the day before I lost my sense of taste, I was smelling ammonia where there wasn’t any. My wife couldn’t smell anything at all, and I couldn’t get away from a smell that wasn’t even real.
My wife had persistent headaches and insomnia for over a week. Her cough and fever never got terrible. I think her highest was 101.5F. She had signed up for a COVID test from the county at the onset of symptoms, and got her positive result after about 10 days. My cough also wasn’t bad, but I felt like there was liquid in my lungs that I couldn’t cough up. I had 4 days of fever cycling between 103.3F and 100F. So I was constantly either shivering or sweating. My wife is a nurse, and she could hear crackling in my lungs. She took me to an urgent care for a chest x-ray. The doctor said my lungs sounded fine, but I said my wife wouldn’t let me go home without an x-ray. The x-ray showed pneumonia in the same lobe the wife predicted it would be.
After the urgent care visit, my fever broke. 3 days later, I got my positive COVID result from the urgent care. My turn came up to get swabbed by the county (11 days after I had requested it). I’d eventually get my result (already negative, surprisingly) after another 15 days. Not very useful testing when it takes 26 days to get results and you can get sick and then recover while waiting to even get swabbed. A couple of days after my county swab, my wife sent in a mail-in test to Everlywell. Her result came back positive. So something doesn’t seem right; I got sick later than she did, I got a lot sicker, I had my follow-up swab a few days earlier than she did, but my test showed I had already recovered while she was still positive.
The kids, age 11 thru 15, didn’t show any symptoms except occasionally a temperature climbing from 97.5F up to 99.
This isn’t worth making an argument over but the list of covid symptoms is pretty long. There’s a reason “passing out/collapsing” isn’t one of them. The covid diagnosis for your dad and this comedian is probably a coincidence and something else is more to blame.
A friend in Glasgow died before his test came back, but he had classic symptoms. The weird bit is he didn’t seem to feel he was in that much danger. He was certainly feeling very unwell for weeks at least, and having trouble keeping food down, but he was posting on Facebook only a few hours before his death. That’s kind of alarming.
Now my dad’s sister in California has it. She’s already survived breast cancer twice and lost her husband last year, so I don’t know what her personal resources for fighting this might be like at this point.
My daughter in Washington went back to work briefly when the bars opened (DJ/bartender), but then cases began to spike because people couldn’t behave themselves, so she’s withdrawn into isolation again to protect my elderly mom who she lives with. I am keeping my fingers crossed for both of them.
Or it means it’s not a symptom of covid and it is just a coincidence. All those unexplained symptoms in seniors happen all the time, like before covid. They just usually remain unexplained. Now doctors can say “welp, I guess the covid caused it even though I have no idea why it would have”.
My symptoms started off with an itching chest right below my breasts, over the course of a few days the itching spread over my entire body and head. A strange tightness in my chest and somewhat short winded with a bit of a cough. The chest issues lasted about 4 days where they were noticeable, the itching took about two weeks to subside. It has been almost two months now and I still have a rash over my arms legs and feet. The rash is not raised at all, it appears to be red blotches but no symptom from them. I had a 101 fever for about 3 days off and on that came on after most of the symptoms had already passed. I tested negative but I was already well when I tested. 71 years old, smoker with moderate copd. Normal weight and no other known issues. I never lost my sense of taste or smell but I did find myself smelling something like ammonia off and on for several days and I do remember dishes not tasting right.
Yes, I discovered, 12 days after the fact, that a friend went to a poker party with seven other guys (WTF!?) and they all got sick. Seven were tested, my friend didn’t bother with a test since his symptoms were identical to the others, who were all positive. He exposed me the day before he became symptomatic. Today is the 14th day since the exposure and no symptoms so I’m probably okay but they won’t test me without symptoms–but what I’m worried about is being an asymptomatic carrier, dammit! We need comprehensive testing of everyone who’s been exposed so we can get a clearer picture of just how many time bombs we have wandering around ticking.
Well, all I can do is to continue to observe social distancing, continue being a hermit just like usual and wear my mask to make sure I don’t inadvertently expose anyone, should I actually be a carrier. This all sucks so much.
My mid 90 something year old nursing home resident grandmother had a fever for one day 2 months ago, tested positive for coronavirus, and was asymptomatic after that. She’s fairly healthy for her age except for dementia.
Not sure if patients really count as people you know personally, but I’ve had multiple patients in the OR for elective or non-elective surgeries who have similar stories of positive tests and mild symptoms, generally patients with much more extensive comorbidities - diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, renal failure, etc. Some were completely asymptomatic. One gentleman in his 70’s, BMI high 30s, not a nursing home resident, told me that his only symptom had been a few days of diarrhea. A patient who had bad asthma at baseline told me she’d had a persistent cough for a month which had since subsided. Her pulmonary function during surgery seemed grossly normal to me.
On the other hand, one of the ICU physicians at the hospital where I did my residency died of covid - one of the best doctors I’ve known. He was in his 60’s, but definitely very unhealthy at baseline. On any given morning at work I wouldn’t have been surprised if I heard he’d died of an MI the night before.
My best friend, Tony, is in the process of dying of heart issues. This wouldn’t be happening if he could actually get the AFIP procedure he needs, but the hospitals are overfull of COVID patients.
His doctor keeps trying to schedule him in, but he’s not in emergent need (as in not dying on the floor at this moment), so its considered to be high priority elective. (Means that if/when they get an open room, he can have it.)
My brother is in the hospital and has been diagnosed with Covid and pneumonia. He was already in terrible shape so I’ll be surprised if he survives it. He doesn’t want to anyway.
His wife probably has it too and is waiting for her test results.