richisalsohere Profile picture
Mar 31, 2020 15 tweets 8 min read Read on X
I am a recovered #coronavirus case. It took 15 days of being sick before anyone believed me that something was wrong. My first symptoms were 5 days before Italy had any corona deaths and before we knew community spreading was occurring. I was very early on in this epidemic.
This is a consolidated version of what we experienced.

I had 2 peaks of the virus. At first it seemed like it was pretty rare but it seems to be a hallmark of more severe cases. Most of my friends were sick for 3-7 days, very cold like. For me it was unlike any cold or flu
I know 3 people who were as bad as I was and 3 that were worse. No deaths, but 1 still in the hospital. The severe cases are not like any cold or flu I have experienced

my experience by day:
Day1: light fever, sore throat, and dry cough
2: fever 101, cough and throat worse
3: fever gone, cough worse.
4: cough cont. sore throat gone.
5: things changed today. This is where I know it wasn’t a normal cold. I reached out for help. tight chest, hard to breathe, fever return 101 degrees.
6: cough gone, harder to breathe then yesterday.
Shortness of breath continues to get worse.

Day 7: Woke up with a higher fever and a worse dry cough, breathing more restricted. This is where it got scary. This was the first night I was really worried. Had to use hot shower, inhaler, and heat to make it through the night.
8: dry cough less often and fever gone. But felt like someone tied a rope around my chest and no breath was giving me the air I needed. Regular “gasp” after a breath to get the air I needed. This gasp thing continued for weeks. It’s hard to explain, u will know it when u see it.
9: sore throat returned. increased difficulty breathing... the rope was tightening.
10: improving symptoms but I now have lung pain. chest tightness not improving. Fatigue and muscle aches likely from the coughing and the inability to sleep.
11-12: significant improvement. I actually think I am over it and that I have made it through the worst.
13-15: I was wrong. Went back to doctor and got my test. The virus hit a “second wind”. We got much worse. Extreme shortness of breath. It was scary.
Considered going to ER But didn’t. Inhalers and steam showers helped and I started using my CPAP for air during the day. This was a mistake. Knowing what I know now, I should have gone in. Listen to your body.

16-20: lingering shortness of breath but steady improvement.
Day 21-27: still some ups and downs. Mostly gone but the cough does come back and the shortness of breath continues. Some days it feels like I will never get better. But breathing exercises and blowing up balloons seems to help.
Day 28-30: started to feel better but continued to fight the lingering shortness of breath. On the night of 30, it got worse. At this point I developed a secondary bacterial pneumonia.

On day 30 I went to the ER. The local #covid19 triage. This was a hellish experience.
But after a breathing treatment and some treatment I was released after 6 hours. The triage was filled with men in serious condition and both men and women walking patients.

Day 31-35: dealing with the bacterial pneumonia. Antibiotics helping.
37-40: I was much better and almost living a normal life. This is when I got both of my clear tests. It was hard to get test initially and really had to force the issue. At this time it was much easier to get the tests.
It started to be in my head... was I ever going to be ok
This is what most people experienced
Day 1: fever and cough
2: cough and chest congestion
3: improvement (my kids were all better by day 3, except the 17 yr and asthmatic. It lasted about 7 days for both of them)
5: maybe a little cough but symptoms are mainly gone.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with richisalsohere

richisalsohere Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @richisalsohere

Mar 31, 2020
Tips for moderate to severe #coronavirus from a survivor.
1. Don’t wait, get help. Call a professional
2. Take control of your care, don’t settle for no
3. Know your “red line” and when 2 goto ER
4. Have some1 with U until it passes. Don’t do it alone
5. Rest, & get up and move
6. keep a running log of your symptoms. At least a sentence a day
7. Zinc seemed to help
8. Humidity helps on “those nights”
9. Menthol seemed to help
10. Get an inhaler
11. Get a pulseox, blood pressure cuff, and no touch thermometer
12. Use a CPaP if you have 1 in the house
Tip 1. get help. I made a mistake here. I didn’t respect #corona as much as I should have. At day 7 and 13 I should have gone to the ER. I called a PA that I trust and took her advice. I would have gone if she said to. Call someone if you don’t want to goto ER. But CALL SOMEONE
Read 17 tweets
Mar 9, 2020
This is a consolidated version of what we experienced. I am assuming I will continue to improve, and I will still provide daily updates until my second clean test. My wife has an autoimmune disorder. My kids are between the age of 4-17. One has asthma.
I will first give what the adults experienced (including my 17 year old, but his was mild and shorter in duration) and then what the younger kids experienced. At about days 7 AND 14, we hit the peak of our symptoms. This is different then my friends and kids. Most people did not
have the second peak of symptoms, seems to be pretty rare. Most people I talk to got something similar to what my kids got. Sore throat seems to be more common in people who got symptoms as bad as I did.
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(