NEW ORLEANS — I'm on day 19 of my coronavirus saga. I want to thank everybody for their well wishes and prayers.
It really meant a lot to read all those comments on Facebook, text messages, emails, I really appreciated it. It really helped me try to work my way through this.
It’s not an easy thing.
As I talked about on my Facebook post on day 10, I had this really bad scare where I woke up in the middle of the night and had this extreme pressure on my chest and then had a panic attack. It was hard for me to determine if my shortness of breath was in relation to the coronavirus and the issues I was having with my lungs or if it was a panic attack and kind of a self-induced concern.
I was luckily able to avoid going to the hospital. I was on the way out the door and my wife made me some tea and had me calm down. She monitored my breathing and determined, after I calmed down, that my breathing was more regular. I was able to take long breaths and didn’t have that extreme shortness of breath that would require a ventilator or hospitalization.
I was lucky.
I think the thing people are just learning about -- that the scholarship isn’t really there yet -- is how the coronavirus affects different people differently. The recovery is very uneven. I'm on day 19. That’s nine days since the scary day. I’ve had some more of that chest pressure, really no strong symptoms. Then I’ll feel better and the next day I’ll feel worse, so it’s been this very uneven recovery.
The key my doctors said was to have three straight days without symptoms where I can be confident I can go back to work and have the strength to get through the day. I think I’m on the third day of that today and that means I’m going to try to start reporting again on a limited basis Wednesday.
This is a very important story, getting the information out to everybody is important right now, more important than ever. That’s why I’m sharing this personal story about my coronavirus journey because I think it can be instructive for people.
I think we’re finding that everybody is experiencing this disease differently. I think the fact that it’s so new and the symptoms are so hard to nail down just makes it scarier because it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
I really appreciate the well wishes. I feel like I’m on the mend. I thought that before and that turned out not to be the case, but I am feeling really good after stringing together several good days.
So, hopefully, look for some reporting from me in the near future. Everybody stay safe. Stay inside. Stay away from others as best you can.
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