Mary
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Certainly we journalists were talking about it because we were out in the field. I was covering Super Tuesday in several states. I watched the lead up to Super Tuesday and the evolution of how people became more aware of COVID-19. While I was in South Carolina, my husband called me and asked, “Please, if you find any hand sanitizer, bring it back.” Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and Lysol wipes were selling out in New York City. When I departed for Super Tuesday coverage, all of the airports had hand sanitizer. A week later the airports I traveled through were sold out of all hand sanitizer, and they were suddenly ghost towns. Nobody was there. It was interesting just to see the nation starting to come to terms with the reality of COVID in a matter of days.
At first, people were looking more to the west coast thinking the outbreak was there. Then, we looked at Westchester County and areas around New York City that seemed to be hotbeds, but I think it took a lot of people by surprise how hard and how quickly New York City was impacted and how total and sudden the impact was. We seemed to go from “normal” city mode to “lockdown” mode in a heartbeat. It hit so many people from so many circles simultaneously.
It hit so many people from so many circles simultaneously.
I was covering the last few days that the New York Stock Exchange was open in mid-March, leading up to and immediately after the city was shutting down, and a number of the last people working down there at the Stock Exchange tested positive around the same time as me. A number of people who worked at my office also tested positive. That was right when things were really peaking.
On March 19th I felt deep body aches and chills. At the time, I'd been working a lot plus doing the usual hands-on parenting. I hoped I might just be tired and a little rundown, that the aches were just a cold coming on. Then, the fever started. I kept taking my temperature hoping it was some aberration. I wound up getting another thermometer, hoping that one was broken. I even had my husband take his temperature just to see if the thermometer was broken. But, we were pretty convinced that something was amiss by the 19th.
I already had a pulmonologist from contracting TB while covering a story in a refugee camp in the Khyber pass. So I called him, and he scheduled a test for me at Mount Sinai’s testing facility. I was all set to go when they called on Saturday and said that Governor Cuomo had signed an executive order that because of the lack of PPE I couldn't get the test. The telemedicine person on the line, a nurse practitioner, said I was presumed positive. Later, I got an antibody test through Mount Sinai that showed that I definitely had it. So on March 21st, I was presumptive positive, and later I was deemed officially positive.
I was all set to go when they called on Saturday and said that Governor Cuomo had signed an executive order that because of the lack of PPE I couldn't get the test.
It was a slow burn at first. I was achy. I didn't feel well. I was tired. By that Wednesday, I started to nose dive. That's when my senses of smell and taste were gone. That wasn't so terrible. It was just strange. Then, the chest pain got worse and worse. That's where it started to feel like someone really heavy was sitting on my chest and I couldn't get a breath in without a really sharp pain in my right lung. That was hard. It was a combination of everything. My doctor prescribed me a strong dose of azithromycin and that helped. I stayed in bed and barely moved from Thursday to Tuesday.
it started to feel like someone really heavy was sitting on my chest and I couldn't get a breath in without a really sharp pain in my right lung.
I had already quarantined myself as best I could away from the family, but I really didn't move. I kept reading my oxygen level. I had some wonderful doctor friends calling me trying to guide me. When my oxygen level went down to the high eighties, I had a doctor friend who wanted me to go to the hospital. Others said I could probably hold out. I was trying to hold out because it was so scary. At that time, you knew that you weren't going to be able to be with your family in any hospital. In pre-pandemic times, if you went into the hospital, you had a loved one with you so you could have an advocate for you to help you make decisions. But, in March and April hospitals in New York City, understandably, had to change visitor policies and make COVID patients go and stay in hospitals alone. As a mom of four, I was scared of being cut off from my kids for days or even weeks. And there was also that big fear about being put on a ventilator and what that would be like. I was fortunate that I was able to ride out the storm and stay at home.
As a mom of four, I was scared of being cut off from my kids for days or even weeks.
I took the advice of doctors. I took a bunch of vitamins, drank warm beverages and used steam. And I took the medicine my doctor prescribed. That really helped. But, that was it. I also had telemedicine visits with my doctor. He wanted to get me an X ray, but no outpatient facility in New York City would see me because of COVID. The only place to get X-rays, my docto said, were hospitals, where the waits were exceedingly long and where he worried I could be further exposed to the virus.
The scariest part of those first two weeks of the virus was wondering if it was going to get any worse. Being a journalist and a news junkie, I followed the stories closely, so I knew how some people who got COVID seemed fine, and thought they were doing alright, and then took a nosedive. I was aware that a lot of people were getting through it fine. But, I was also mindful of my own mortality. Three months before I got COVID, my brother, and only sibling, died suddenly at the age of 48. He died not long after both of my parents died suddenly. I was acutely aware that life can take a very sudden and unfortunate turn. So when it came to what I was thinking when I was at my sickest with COVID, it was a lot of, “Oh, I hope I have more time.” So, I tried to find a happy medium of reminding myself that statistically I should be okay. But, I still wondered if I would be in the other percentage. It's that not knowing which way the COVID was going to progress that was hard during those early days of the virus.
The scariest part of those first two weeks of the virus was wondering if it was going to get any worse.
Three months later, I still have three lingering symptoms. My lungs still hurt like they have been bent out of shape. They feel bruised. Sometimes they burn like I ran too hard in the cold for a while. They just hurt. There's the exhaustion. I've never been a nap taker, but sometimes feel like I have to lay down now. My family has been great about it. Some days instead of eating lunch, I use my lunch break to take a nap. The other thing is the heart palpitations. They are not nearly as bad as they were, but for a while, the heart palpitations were an issue and even kept me up at night. It’s very scary when you can feel your heart rate skip around and seem to stick.
My lungs still hurt like they have been bent out of shape. They feel bruised. Sometimes they burn like I ran too hard in the cold for a while.
I’ve talked to my doctor and researchers who say these things are normal from what they're finding. There's a consistency to these symptoms that they are seeing in other patients. A lot of us who have had COVID have questions. We don't want to overdo it, over-exert ourselves. But, a lot of us are type A New Yorkers who want to get back to life as we knew it before COVID, where we’re running around at top speeds again. So, what do we do now? There's not a lot that they totally know yet about how long things like burning lungs will last. They’re still figuring things out in this first wave. Will there be long-term damage that we have to contend with? How long will my lung capacity be affected? Is this a passing thing or could some of this be permanent? A lot of people are asking those questions. I still get winded. I can't yell at my kids, literally, still. They think it's funny, but I get really winded. I can't. Why don't we feel like we’re “back to normal”? It just might take a while.
I can't yell at my kids, literally, still. They think it's funny, but I get really winded. I can't.
Symptoms: chest pain, sharp pain in right lung, fatigue, fever, difficulty breathing, loss of smell and taste, heart palpitations
Treatment: azithromycin, vitamins, warm beverages, steam, telemedicine
Mary is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning television journalist, a New York Times bestselling author, and an acclaimed public speaker.