ER doctor gives first-hand account of having coronavirus

An emergency room physician who lives locally recently tested positive for coronavirus. While some have given first-hand accounts of what it's like living through the virus, hearing from a doctor about suffering through the illness offers a unique perspective.

That physician, who didn't want to be named, recently took to Facebook to describe his experience, writing:

"Thank you all for your prayers and support. It means a great deal to me. I don’t post a lot ... but this is different.

"I think there is a misconception about COVID-19 that, really, only the elderly or those with underlying health problems will get severe disease. This is because mortality (death) rates are much higher in this population.

"It doesn’t mean younger, healthy people won’t get severe illness. I got severely ill. I’ve never experienced illness like this before. I never felt like I would die, but there were times when I thought that death might be an improvement.

"The first week, I had a cough, and some muscle and joint pain. No nasal congestion, or sore throat. It started in the chest. NO fever. It’s been reported that 98 percent have fever. I got a fever but not until I had been sick for 8 days.

"Three days after the cough started, it began to feel like something was squeezing my lungs from inside and deep breaths were like a knife in the chest. I experienced shortness of breath for the first time in my life.

"I had to pause when climbing stairs to catch my breath. Also, I developed pink eye. Not the itchy, watery irritation, but a painful form that hurt the entire left side of my eye and head when I looked around.

"That was week one. It hadn’t gotten bad yet.

"Week two ushered in with addition of fever that caused every bone in my body to hurt like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

"I had chills that caused audible teeth chattering. This was cycled with sweats that left my clothes and sheets looking like I had jumped in a pool. And diarrhea. Not copious or terrible, but when getting out of bed to go 15 feet to the toilet is agonizing, any diarrhea is more than just a pain in the rear.

"I still had the cough and chest pain from week 1. The fever and diarrhea were added prizes. That lasted for 3 days.

"Yesterday was better. Little relapse last night, but doing better today. I’ve seen accounts of people on TV that describe a mild flu like illness.

"Most people will get symptoms like that. Healthy people can get severe illness, though.

"I don’t want to feel like that, again. I really hope we get more data soon about illness conferring immunity, because I definitely want to be immune to COVID-19.

"However, I’ve read reports of healthcare workers, particularly some of the young, cowboy/cowgirl types advocating intentional exposure to get immunity. One, there is no guarantee that infection confers immunity, and two, you don’t want to gamble with potentially getting an illness that will knock you down and out for two whole weeks.

"I was asked to make this public, so that it could be shared, and I have. Hopefully, this will help shed some light on this illness in a first hand perspective from an otherwise healthy 46-year-old emergency physician."