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Commenter Sharon W’s COVID story — 98 Comments

  1. Heart rending 🙁
    Prayers for him and for you and the boys.

    He’s lucky to have such a confident wife who could care and watch for him while sick herself.

  2. Sharon,

    I will pray the rosary tonight for you and your husband. I’d also add my favorite psalm to the prayers and wishes here:
    Psalm 46:

    -God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
    -Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
    though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.
    -There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
    -God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.
    -Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
    -The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.
    -Come and see what the Lord has done,
    the desolations He has brought on the earth.
    -He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
    He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the shields with fire.
    -He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”
    -The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

  3. Thank you each and every one for your prayers, rosary, scriptures (just got off the phone with my friend and I referenced Psalm 46,“Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”)

    I have a very deep and strong faith in God, as does my husband. We are 2 healthy, relatively young (64/60) active people that do not have weight problems (both glad we hadn’t yet lost that extra 10 pounds prior to this) who take no medications. We did not know a single person who had or has this, nor did we know anyone who was exposed to SARS CoV-2 virus. On the evening of Thursday 3/26 my husband told me that it was very dusty at one of our construction jobs. He suffers from allergies and I chided him for not wearing a mask. He assured me he wasn’t there long. About 15 minutes later he sat down at the table and he had that glassy-eye look that signals a cold. I told him go take a shower and go to bed. He proceeded to cough during the night. In the morning we both agreed that he couldn’t go anywhere coughing so he stayed home. When I came home that evening he had been unable to eat and even had trouble with liquids. He was running a fever and exhausted. All day Saturday he slept with me trying to ply him w/food and liquids which he tried to consume. I began coughing during Saturday night…the same cough that he had Thursday that started the ball rolling. On Sunday we were both running fevers. When his reached 102 I drove him to the Urgent Care. They treated him from the car. He tested negative for A, B Flu and they did the swab for Sars Co-V 2. Monday we continued to run our fevers, his appetite still depressed. They called at 7 PM and confirmed his positive, said I didn’t need to be tested and to assume that I have it and stay in for 14 days, using NSAIDS for relief. Well, Neo posted the rest of the sad tale. He is now in ICU on an oxygen mask for maximum oxygen and hoping the Actemra will quell the cytokine storm. There won’t be a ventilator. Only certain hospitals have the Remdesivir and it is in clinical trial so a patient could end up on the placebo (50%/50%). As of this week we know of a personal case where a doctor had his staff put him on it on a ventilator for 5 days. He is now home doing well.

  4. Lifting you and your husband up before the Throne, praying for strength and healing for you both.

  5. Thank you for sharing. May you both find the strength to pull through this.

  6. Hard to read. Can’t imagine what it’s like to live through.

    Will add my prayer to those who’ve been more eloquent in expressing their hopes for your husband’s recovery, as well as your own. I’m at a loss for words.

  7. May the Holy One, Blessed be He, restore your husband to perfect health in body and spirit.

  8. I had wondered where “Sharon” had been. I had noticed her absence, even though she is not the most proflic commenter.

    May Almighty God grant her the healing she seeks; as well as to any others who ask with humility and right intention.

    If anyone still needed a louder wakeup call with regard to the desperate seriousness of this situation, reading Sharon’s account will have provided it.

    This is not the flu, nor is it like the flu. And we had all better get our minds right, regardless of how we perceive our personal risk. We really have no idea what’s in store for us, as curves and probabilities only work from knowns, as Neo has herself pointed out more than once. This is become the kind of situation where pride and skepticism go out the window, and in facing a potential reality no longer avoidable, a lukewarm cultural Christian [unlike Sharon] drops to his knees as if pushed, and says, “Jesus, help!”

    And the Churches are closed.

    In any event, her recounting has certainly made an impression on me, as anyone who’s bothered with my generally cynical and carping comments in the past, will notice.

    Thank you Sharon. Have a blessed and restorative Easter.

  9. Thanks for describing your experience. I came close to death in 2009, H1N1 related pneumonia. You and especially your husband will feel week for months. My best wishes for full recovery.

  10. God bless you, Sharon. Praying for your husband. Take care

    If I may, can I ask where (city?) do you live?

  11. The buildings where some assembled and called it church are closed. The Church, the Bride of Christ is never closed, never destroyed for it is not made of brick and mortar but of the lives and hearts and spirits and prayers of the Redeemed. The Lord Himself promised that the gates of hell cannot prevail against her, for the Spirit indwells her. But she has often been sleeping.

    And it appears, she is getting quite a wake-up call.

  12. Saying prayers for both of you. May you both be healed and delivered to full health.

    Such a horrid, beastly virus. Thanks for sharing. It’s certainly eye opening.

  13. Good Lord, may our Good Lord bless you and keep your and your husband though this most difficult time and may our many prayers for recovery be answered. Your story is a reminder to all of us that this virus is most wicked stuff to many people. Thank you Sharon W. for sharing and once more peace and blessing on you and your house.

  14. Prayers for you, Sharon, and your husband. Sincere wishes for a recovery.

    Thank you for sharing your story. May we all find the wisdom to wear masks outside, and wash hands with soap & water every time we go inside, and each use of the WC (water closet – toilet).

    Perhaps reading a newly made curriculum from Harvard med students might help:
    https://covidstudentresponse.org/

  15. What a horrific experience.

    My prayers to Sharon and her husband.

    Sharon impresses me as a strong lady.

  16. My sister from Brooklyn is finally recovering from what appears to have been Covid-19. She had a low-grade fever for 2 weeks, no appetite, constant fatigue in spite of sleeping day and night. She had left Brooklyn just before the onset to head to her camp near Saranac. She had phone communication with her doctor who said not to come to the ER unless she was short of breath. Her O2 levels were 90-91 with an occasionaly dip into the low 80’s but she was never short of breath. I spoke with her via phone and she had no trouble talking. She did develop a cough, dry cough, but nothing too alarming. Now, she seems to be out of the woods (technically, in the literal woods) and is hoping that her husband shows no signs of the disease. He is an Alzheimer’s patient and it would knock him for a loop and I don’t know how she would cope with him.

  17. Dear Sharon,

    Prayers up for both you and your husband. I would add Psalm 23 to Psalm 46 as a good Scripture reading; also Psalm 22, the traditional Psalm for Good Friday, which Jesus recited during His crucifixion.

    Please keep Neo posted about your husband’s condition; you have friends here who care and will keep praying for you.

  18. A friends mother, quite elderly and Alzheimer, died a few days ago (i just found out) in the nursing home… Given the situation, no one could be with her, no one was there. It also struck fast… 🙁

  19. DNW:

    As I wrote in this post, “the flu” is many things, and it can be a killer every bit as bad as COVID or worse. I had a friend who at a previously-healthy 52 years of age almost died from the flu. She went to the hospital almost unable to breathe, and was placed into a coma and on a ventilator for many days as her life hung in the balance. It took her a year to regain her strength. She had the flu.

  20. Sharon, we are praying for your husband, and for you. May God be with your and yours throughout this ordeal.

    I have been sitting here for several minutes trying to think of something to say that might help you. I hope you feel the depth of love and hope from all the commenters here.

  21. @ Neo
    Hey Neo. You may be right. But I have never in my life known anyone who was dangerously sickened by the flu, much less died from contracting it.

    In fact, the only person I know of who was hospitalized for it was myself. Or so I was told as an adult, having been either a near infant or a toddler at the time. Was put on an IV I was informed

    I do recall being sicker than a dog from the “flu”, as a somewhat older boy. Nauseated constantly, dizzy, sipping 7up from a cup of ice chips, it was like being drunk and hung over at the same time for days on end. Something that was going through the school.

    I’ve since been told that those are not symptoms of the “real flu” and that real flu is like a bad cold.

    I’d take a bad cold any day over those remembered days of chills, headaches, dizziness and constant vomiting.

    No, I would not intentionally minimize any such ailment. I have just never known anyone who was hospitalized from the symptoms of “a bad cold”.

  22. Dear Sharon — for you are dear to us —
    May the Lord bless you and your husband and your family. Thank you for letting us know what you are going through — it must be difficult to write about, and I appreciate you taking the effort to share your experience with us.

    John 11:25-26
    25 Jesus said …I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

    26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. …

    John 3:16
    For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

  23. DNW:

    Actually, you may know someone who almost died from the flu and you might not even know that part of their history unless you knew them at the time it happened. Not only do I know the person I wrote about in my comment above, but I know others. And of course, the 1918 pandemic, one of the worst killers in history, was a flu.

    My goal isn’t to argue that coronavirus isn’t bad. It is. It’s just that I think people tend to pooh-pooh the flu, and it also can be quite a killer, too.

  24. Sharon,
    It must be agonizing for you to be separated from your husband when he needs you most. I pray for his recovery and that he will return home to your love and care. May God grant you peace and strength.

  25. @DNW — Eight years ago my then-wife and I had the flu. My immune system handled it as usual: I ran a 101 fever and felt like crap for a week and then coughed for a month. She ran a 103 fever and ended up in the hospital for ten days with pneumonia, and has probably life-long lung damage and pulmonary issues. That was the flu, too.

    (Happily, our three-year-old didn’t get sick at all.)

  26. There used to be a commercial for some OTC flu medicine. It would show a video a nice little rain shower, and say, “This is a cold,” and then their show Hurricane Camille, “And this is the flu.” The flu for most of not like a “bad cold.” It is incredible misery. It hospitalizes a few hundred thousand every year and kills terms of thousands.

    I had it once, in my twenties. I was in college. Luckily, I had two fantastic room mates, one of whose father was a doctor. I was in terrible pain — every party of me hurt. I had an agonizing headache, and with horrible chills. I couldn’t walk — they would both walk me to the bathroom. (The doctor’s daughter bought a plastic mattress pad at his suggestion.) They forced me to eat chicken soup, and drink water. I probably would’ve been hospitalized if it hadn’t been for them. I was in bed for a week, and barely mobile for another after that. When I recovered physically, mentally, I dropped into a profound depression.

  27. DNW,

    In my family I have two cousins who got the flu and then developed pneumonia very quickly and died. They were both in their mid-30s, otherwise healthy. One was thin, the other stocky, but not really fat.

    I guess, technically they died of pneumonia, but the influenza brought on the pneumonia.

  28. Dear Sharon

    My family will be praying for you and your husband this Holy Saturday.
    I’m going to tell my friends to pray for you as well.

    Entrust yourself to God.

  29. I’m so sorry. It must be unspeakable suffering to have to hear about this unfolding in a hospital you can’t enter, with only occasional and partial information from the staff, as if he were trapped overseas. I’m grateful to hear that the doctor does call you when he can, and he’s clearly fighting hard for your husband. My prayers are with husband to overcome the illness, and for you to have courage and strength.

  30. May the One who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless and heal Sharon and her husband. May the Blessed Holy One be filled with compassion for their health to be restored and their strength to be revived. May God swiftly send them a complete renewal of body and spirit.

  31. Sharon, is your husband part of a clinical trial similar to one described here?:
    https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04315480

    . . . intravenous tocilizumab [Actemra] will be administered as single 8mg/Kg dose in patients affected by severe multifocal interstitial pneumonia correlated to SARS-CoV2 infection. Aim of the study is to test the hypothesis that an anti-IL6 treatment can be effective in calming the virus-induced cytokine storm, blocking deterioration of lung function or even promoting a rapid improvement of clinical conditions, preventing naso-tracheal intubation and/or death.

  32. Sharon, I wish you and your husband the best. That’s a frightening account of this disease. I’ll keep you in my prayers.

  33. Hi Solrist–Tried the link and got this message:

    Video unavailable

    This video has been removed by the uploader

  34. I am an everyday lurker here and don’t comment….I know, shame on me…but may God bless you Sharon and your husband and wrap his arms around you both. I am praying for you.

  35. Ira, yes my husband is part of that trial. I have not yet received a morning update from the head doctor. He is in charge of the acting doctor who is an infectious disease specialist. As of yesterday, my husband was stable, the only only issue being his lungs affected by the cytokine storm that the Actemra will hopefully assuage. We have 3 adult children, all very close to their Dad. In speaking to our personal physician who is also being directly communicated with regarding my husband’s care, I asked what he thought of them calling him. I wasn’t sure because the prior day I asked my husband if he wanted the kids to call and he said no because he would cry. My desire was to not bring about any more stress to his mental/physical situation. Our doctor recommended that they call and felt it would be an overall benefit to Doug. I asked if I should wait to speak to the ICU Social Worker Dr. with whom the hospital set up a phone appt for me today and he said no call now. The ICU nurse confirmed that they could equip Doug with a phone and they gave me a special access code to give the children. Yesterday each one spoke with their Dad and it was positive and uplifting in every way. Doug then called me and he sounded the best I had heard in a while. He already knew the people that were praying for him prior to hospitalization but he asked me about specific friends….are they praying? In fact I had contacted them after he was hospitalized and reassured him. We are devout Catholics who had spent 10 years of our lives in an evangelical church and still have strong connections to believers in that community. Brothers and sisters in Christ across the board are joined in praying for Doug’s recovery. We pray a blessing over every person who has uttered so much as one prayer on our behalf and are thankful. The degree of calm that I have experienced throughout this crisis up to the present moment is a sovereign grace…a miracle, I can’t take any credit. I have been able to sleep and I am a life-long poor sleeper under the best of circumstances. So thank you all. My husband wants to live and is receiving the best care that is available to him. I am now day 3 fever-free and only have a cough.

  36. God bless this beautiful family! My morning prayers of comfort and hope for you all, in Jesus’ name.

  37. The “Priestly Blessing” for your husband’s recovery and your own:

    May the Lord bless you and guard you.
    May the Lord shine his face upon you and be gracious to you.
    May the Lord turn his face toward you and grant you peace.

    Praying for a recovery for you both.

  38. Dear Sharon

    We’ve kept you and Doug present during the Holy Mass of Resurrection.

    A lot of people is praying for you here in Lombardy – I contacted my friends of Comunione and Liberazione and they spread your request from Varese to Milano and beyond.

    Coraggio

  39. I am humbled by all the scriptures, blessings and prayers. I spoke with a doctor this morning and Doug is stable. The hope is that he will continue to rally and be able to recover from the cytokine storm. No fevers, no ARDS. He is fighting.

    Mike K- Remdesvir is in clinical trial. I’m glad Doug didn’t end up at a hospital that had the drug as there could have been a 50% chance he would have been ventilated with a placebo.

    Paolo, I am deeply grateful. Every Tuesday, my husband and I fast and then pray together in the evening. At the beginning of each year, we seek God and ask how we can pray for the worldwide Church (every person that believes in the birth, death, resurrection and coming return of Jesus Christ). Last year the word was “Courage”, this year it is “Confidence”. Coraggio!

  40. Sharon,
    Nothing happens by chance, amazing.

    When my youngest son, Andrea, came out with a cancer at the last stage, in 2015, I was scared to death, I felt impotent to save him. Each day I learned a little more to really trust in God, as I never did before; it’s not easy to reach the prayer “Thy will be done”, but **everything** is in those words.

    The Lord will continue to lead you and Doug, and He will show you signs through events and people; He’s already doing that, as you know.

    Read saint Faustina Kowalska’s diary.
    I keep you and your family in my heart.

  41. Prayers for Sharon and family. Seems to me a lot of Neo readers are people of some faith.

  42. Barry Meislin on April 11, 2020 at 2:24 pm said:
    The “Priestly Blessing” for your husband’s recovery and your own:

    May the Lord bless you and guard you.
    May the Lord shine his face upon you and be gracious to you.
    May the Lord turn his face toward you and grant you peace.

    Praying for a recovery for you both.
    * * *
    The Westminster Choir singing Peter Lutkin’s setting of this benediction (KJV text).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4C9zVg5X_A

    When I sang in our high school a cappella choir in the late sixties, it was our custom — and had been for many years before I got there — to close every concert with this piece. When we traveled and stopped at a cafeteria, we sang it as grace before our meal. So far as I could tell, no one objected, and most people gave our musical prayer their respectful attention. (Did I mention I’m from Texas?)

    Sharon and everyone else – pretend I am singing this for you.
    May you have a blessed Easter, and may the Destroying Angel pass over your abode.

  43. AesopFan, that was lovely! I have sung that “Amen” hundreds of times. Imagine me on the soprano line.

    Easter blessings to all celebrating, and special prayers for Sharon W., Doug, and their family, and for Paolo and his family and his fellow Italians.

  44. An update: I spoke to doctor late morning. Things are going in the right direction. Doug is stable (as you know a big deal). 2 of the 3 markers they are looking at regarding inflammation have gone down (good).He has finished all course of drugs for the antimicrobial. He is still on 15 liters of oxygen via the Facemask and his oxygen levels are going 92-96–there was one 100 during the night. The doctors are deciding whether they should do another dose of Actemra or continue to see what happens with the one dose. Remember Doug is in a clinical trial regarding the use of this drug in treating a cytokine storm. I pray wisdom from on high in this matter. I asked about his phone and the nurse was passing by so he handed her the phone and she said she would check to see if he received it and follow up if necessary. Off the cuff she told me “he’s doing great.”

    As for me, I remain fever-free and am practicing a breathing technique that my sister in law linked to (out of Britain) and it has been helpful. I’m very tired today. Again all prayers, blessings and scripture references are so gratefully received. Easter blessings to all.

  45. Sharon:

    That is absolutely WONDERFUL news!!!! Happy Easter to you and Doug and your family!!

  46. Sharon:

    Thank you so much for the update on Doug’s treatment. It is great news indeed! That Doug is steadily improving soon and you both recover completely are my prayers for you. Blessings in Christ Jesus on this Easter.

  47. Sharon

    I’m so happy for this good news! Buona Pasqua!

    We keep you in the family’s prayers, and our friends continue as well.
    Forza!

  48. I looked up a couple of stories on the breathing technique, and it makes sense to me — also looks a lot like the exercises we did to build lung capacity for those looooooong phrases in our choir songs, except for the cough at the end, not sure what that is supposed to do.

    Caveat from another source: another doctor says “looks more useful for bacterial pneumonia conditions that produce phlegm; don’t do this (for covid) and think it will save you” — but everything we’re trying now is a “might help, doesn’t look like it will hurt” sort of thing.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11344263/nhs-doctor-coronavirus-breathing-technique-jk-rowling/

    Snowed all day in Denver – lovely Easter weather!

  49. Thank you for returning with occasional updates. Until this resolves you are temporarily family!
    Of course, God’s will be done but hopefully we children can be indulged in hope for a specific outcome 🙂

  50. Thanks for the updates, Sharon. As you can tell, the Neo Community is rooting for you and your dear husband.

    PS AesopSpouse and I are taking our vitals every day or so, just to have a baseline. Today I put the oxygen tester on my finger and got 93-94%, then did the opera diva’s exercise and shot up to 97!

    Snowed all day again today — looks more like Christmas outside now!

  51. Sunny and nice here, AF!
    But doubtless, in time, you’ll be enjoying the same LOL.

    I grew up in MI, there is a real charm to fresh snow. By April? Arguably … not so much 🙂 🙂

  52. Yesterday was probably the most challenging day for me. I was fighting discouragement for a number of reasons. I faced it head-on first thing this morning and then heard from my husband. He sounded good. He had eaten a proper breakfast. He said they were planning to put him on a steroid for the next 5 days, keeping him in ICU. He said he was given a sponge bath in the morning and the facemask was removed (he has been on maximum 15 liters of oxygen for a week now) and he had “absolutely no breath, nothing!” I asked him if he was afraid. I took great comfort in the fact that he said no. As it is he feels the presence of God as he walks through this trial, as do I. Since that call I have spoken to 2 doctors who have told me he is stable, the inflammation markers are moving down, other markers up; everything in the right direction. I was told yesterday that Doug is the only person in ICU making progress. They have now replaced the facemask with an Oximizer. He called me a 2nd time and told me the Oximizer burns and he let them know. He had his first PT and said it was very challenging. He stood for the first time in 9 days and said he had no legs. The key to Doug’s recovery is that his lungs recover. I am hopeful.

  53. Sharon W:

    I’m glad the news is going in the right direction. It still sounds terribly stressful, though. I’m also glad your husband’s faith and yours is sustaining you both.

  54. Ah, this will go on for some time.
    Recovery … not guaranteed but increasingly likely … then worry over permanent damage to the lungs.

    But sufficient unto the day …
    Rejoicing at the progress so far!
    Go Doug!

  55. Sharon and Doug:

    We all continue to lift you up in prayers for strength and recovery.

    Blessings

  56. Doug is out of ICU. He is still on the Oximizer but making progress. I feel like getting to this point is a miracle. I’m extremely relieved and grateful. The road to healing and recovery became brighter today.

  57. Two thumbs up!
    But surely, they haven’t yet made a guess when Doug can come home?

    Thanks again for your updates. Be sure to thank the boys for convincing Doug to seek medical help.

  58. Sharon,

    this is WONDERFUL!!! We are all with you and Doug, so happy!

    We never stopped praying for you and I’ve been checking daily for some news, but expected to see it in more recent posts.
    Also the Salesians of saint Giovanni Bosco have been involved: I contacted an old friend, who is the current Segretario generale of the order.

    I am sure that God led you both, through this event, closer to His will and love; He gives this signs to engage us deeper in His mission.

    A big, big hug! it’s safe from such a distance! 😀

  59. Sharon – great news on Doug’s recovery!
    Prayers are being answered – and I second what Paolo said about God’s blessings.

    “I asked him if he was afraid. I took great comfort in the fact that he said no. As it is he feels the presence of God as he walks through this trial, as do I.”

    John 11:25 — “I am the resurrection and the Life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;”

    Please keep us posted.

  60. So very happy to see the wonderful news that Doug is out of the ICU. The Whatsits have been thinking of you both and will keep praying and holding you in the light.

  61. Sharon, I’m very glad to hear this! You’ve been in my thoughts and prayers since I first heard this.

  62. Does anyone else wish our dear Neo would create a new post on Doug and Sharon W? 🙂 🙂

    In a way, I would. Power of prayer and all.
    In a way, no. Perhaps Sharon would like to drift back to a more anonymous state on the blog.

  63. JimNorCal:

    Sharon’s last update indicated Doug had really turned a corner and that they were talking about letting him out in a couple of days. So I suspect I may hear something from her in a day or two.

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