No one has told you this with Covid-19. Everything you need to know, from a 28 year old.
By: Ashley Blackmore
Tags: Survival, Personal, Covid 19, Covid 19 Crisis, Covid Diaries

First, let me start by saying I am not a doctor. I am a 28 year old, avid outdoors adventurer, mom, and real estate agent. I live in a small town in Colorado, and I would be categorized as “healthy”. I have no weird underlying health issues to my knowledge, and I am not “overweight”, or anything else they speak about in the news.

When Covid-19 news hit my TV screen I ultimately kept following the protocols put in place by our local government, and also decided I was not going to live my life in fear. We spent our summer mostly outdoors (Durango, Colorado has tons of outdoor recreation) and limited our exposure to others. But, that is mainly because I live in a small town in the first place.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving week. My mom had just been in a horse accident and of course, I had to step in to take care of her because she is in her 60’s and my dad is middle 70’s. It was just about two weeks after her being discharged from the hospital my husband came down with a runny nose and “cold like” symptoms. He was down for about four days.

I felt like the news was telling me EVERYTHING is Covid-19, literally seems like every symptom could be. So, we started staying home. About five days after my husband had recovered from his cold like symptoms I started getting a pounding headache.

As a real estate agent I have had my fair share of headaches and stress. This headache felt like I was recovering from a college party. It was POUNDING. I would wake up with the headache, and then it would subside during the day, and at night the spins would come again and the pounding in the morning. This went on for about three days.

Then day eight came. I was feeling a lot better and had just got done with making a lasagna and wrapping up and putting my son to bed. I woke up at 2:30 a.m with burning in my hands and turned on the light to see my palms BRIGHT red. Within the next thirty minutes a rash occured, my fingers swelled, and I thought I was having an allergic reaction to the Lasagna. I woke up and took a Benadryl. (I had no known allergies, but I didn’t know this could be Covid-19)

About two hours later I rolled over in bed and asked my husband to take my to the hospital. My throat felt like it was closing, I had terrible pain in my chest, and my legs were shaking like I was freezing cold but my feet were sweaty. He got dressed and said he would come back and get me. When I went to stand up I could not walk. My legs felt like jello and my heart was racing. I immediately told my husband to call 911. Now, let me explain something, I am avid in the outdoors and grew up riding horses. I have broke my back, my wrist, and dislocated my hip. This was my first time calling an ambulance, that is how scared I was!

We arrive at the hospital and it’s immediately blood work, EKG, MRI, and nose swabs for Covid-19 testing. Initially the ER doctor said he did not think I had Covid based off my bloodwork. Well, two hours go by and I come back with a positive test. The doctor kept saying “Wow, you are so Orthostatic”.

Full circle, when I was laying down in the hospital and would stand up my heart rate would sky rocket! I would get dizzy, the weak in the legs feeling would come back, and they would immediately have me lay back down… everything would resume to normal. Ultimately, the solution was to give me a dose of anti-inflammatory and lots of fluids via IV and sent me home.

That night was miserable. Full body shaking, pain in my heart area (since I passed the blood clot test, heart and lung scans, I knew I had to suffer through it), swelling, rash, and shaking. But, NO fever. I would take Tylenol and it wouldn’t scratch the surface. The next day the pain had made me so nauseous that even without having any taste or smell, I couldn’t stomach food. With multiple calls the nurses, and my homeopathic doctor we ended up having to go BACK to the E.R.

The second doctor recommended Ibuprofen and Tylenol rotating every four hours and gave me a prescription for an antihistamine that was not benadryl. I rotated between the antihistamine, Ibuprofen, and Tylenol rotating every four hours between the two. I got a full night's rest, rash went away, swelling reduced, and the shaking tremors subsided substanationally. I was not able to take care of myself still for another four days. 28 years old, healthy before, and couldn’t even make myself food. The dizziness and heart rate changes made it impossible to get around my own home.

I remember when they said do not take Ibuprofen with Covid-19 in the beginning. To be honest, I wish that was news I would have not seen. I believe if I would have known about the ability to take the Ibuprofen and the antihistamine it would have saved me four days of suffering, and probably countless in hospital bills.

My mom ended up maybe being the possible source for Covid-19 as she tested positive as well but only had mild symptoms, my dad never got it. I am very thankful for that.

But, they keep saying older people are at risk, or underlying health issues. My hospital told me they are seeing people my age develop something called “POTS” syndrome. I still am having issues with circulation and have not been able to return to driving. I am hoping this subsides, but just want to inform people that people who are my age, still can have weird inflammatory responses. This is not just a cold or flu, my inflammation response was scary and nothing that I read about in the news.

I do not advise, recommend, or suggest anyone takes the dosage or medicine in this post. Please seek doctors care if ill or if you could have Covid-19. This is just my personal experience, and would find it beneficial for larger health organizations to notify people more of the inflammatory issues associated with Covid-19 because they scared me more than any flu or cold ever has. Thank you so much to my amazing doctors and nurses in our small town who helped me get through this scary time.

#covid19 #survivingcovid #covideducation #symptomsofcovid #quarenting #symptomsofcovid19

Thanks for reading- Ashley Blackmore