My Husband and I survived COVID-19
By: Erika Burkhalter
Tags: Covid 19, Coronavirus, Love, Covid Diaries, Pandemic

Our sense of taste is just starting to come back. And, I think I caught a faint whiff of my peppermint tea today. For at least a week, my husband and I have not been able to taste or smell anything.

We made baked potatoes three nights ago. I couldn’t finish mine, so my husband had doctored up my left-overs with black beans and chives the next night. But when I took a bite, and tried to chew, it was like mashing a variety of textures, with absolutely no flavor, in my mouth. When I stuck my nose close to the steaming potato, I could feel the vapor in the back of my throat, but couldn’t smell a thing. And trying to choke anything down amidst my nausea was nearly impossible.

We had been pretty certain that we had COVID-19, but when my sister sent me a link on Monday, reporting a growing body of evidence that anosmia and dysgeusia (loss of smell and taste) are rapidly becoming key confirming indicators of the coronavirus, we knew for sure that we had it.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery wrote in a statement, “Anecdotal evidence is rapidly accumulating from sites around the world that anosmia and dysgeusia are significant symptoms associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

And, on Sunday, the American Academy of Otolaryngology published a statement, proposing that anosmia, hyposomnia, and dysgeusia be added to the list of screening tools for COVID-19.

When my husband and I received my sister’s text, we grabbed Vick’s Sinus Sticks, placed them in our nostrils, took a deep breath — and nothing. Not even a hint of menthol.

The journey home

On Sunday, March 8th, my husband and I flew home from the Dominican Republic, through both the Miami International Airport and the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Before our trip, COVID-19 was somewhere “out there.” But we didn’t actually know anybody who had had any experience with it. It still seemed to be a rather nebulous threat.

But, just in case, a couple of weeks before the trip, I had ordered hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, because I thought we should be careful on the plane. I wiped down every possible surface, knob, seatbelt, and air duct. I (but not my husband) put on a mask. And then we enjoyed the most gorgeous flight that I have ever been on — a clear day stretching over the vastness of the Caribbean Ocean.

And, when got off of the plane, we were greeted by a very nice young man, who was there to drive us to the hotel. He stuck his hand out. And my husband (reflexively) shook it.

We immediately ducked into the restrooms to wash our hands. And then we tried to explain to the young man that shaking hands was not a safe practice right now. It seemed pretty obvious, though, that he had no sense of the gravity of the situation.

While we were in the Dominican Republic, we started hearing the news that UCLA and UC San Diego had sent their students home. On the day we flew home, Italy closed its borders.

The world had no understanding of what was about to happen.

Rushing to our gate, for our flight home, a familiar face appeared in the crowd. It was the young man who had met us on arrival. And he stuck out his hand again. And, again, my husband, so “well-trained” to shake hands, shook his hand.

We cringed, went to the bathroom, scrubbed our hands, then looked at each other and said, “How many people’s hands from all over the world do you think he has shaken in the last few days?” And then we started to think about all of the things, places and people that those hands had been in contact with.

Once again, I disinfected every possible surface of the plane. And I wore a mask. But I did hear someone coughing a seat or two further back. Even so, I really still felt like the disinfectant measures were probably just precautionary. The thought that I would ever actually catch COVOD-19 was not yet fully formulated.

The onset

The Wednesday night after we came home, my husband felt very slightly achy, but, it was so slight, that he didn’t really realize what was happening.

Thursday morning, he wiped down his keyboard, and door knobs, at the office with a bleach wipe, and slipped out, thinking that he was probably being paranoid, but he thought he should come home.

He hasn’t left the house since.

He still had no fever on Friday morning. He really didn’t even feel sick, more just “off.”

I had not been to the grocery store since we had been home, and Amazon Prime Now (grocery delivery) had stopped offering delivery dates here, in Southern California (because all of the panicked shoppers were using the service). I also had a doctor’s appointment. I called them, and said that my husband was a little under-the-weather, but had no fever, and should I still come in? “Yes,” they said. “We’ll take precautions.”

Friday night, I was in a lot of pain from having stem cells injected into my arthritic fingers. I stood up from playing with the cats to look out of the window of the front door at the magnificent rainstorm raging outside. And I felt myself start to pass out. I awoke milliseconds later to find my hand and cheek pressed up against the glass. I laid down on the couch, attributing it to the pain of the procedure.

But I have had had that same “passing out” feeling just a few times in my life: the first was when I was twelve, and I was seated at the foot of my mother’s hospital bed in ICU — she had Guillain–Barré syndrome and was completely paralyzed, and on a ventilator; the second time was when I sat down in the middle of a holiday party, took off my shoes, and realized that my toes were numb — I had no idea yet that I was about to get Guillain–Barré syndrome too (although I didn’t have as severe a case as she did. I never had to be put on a ventilator); the third time that I had that “feeling,” was when I passed out in a bathroom on a bus in India after a sudden onset of projectile vomiting.

So, I really wasn’t sure if the “passing-out-for-a-few-milliseconds” feeling was just from the pain of my fingers, or if it meant anything more. But, I had a serious thought that COVID-19 might have just entered my body.

My fingers really hurt that night — so much that I took a Norco left over from a past surgery.

And, during the night I took another Norco.

The next morning — abdominal symptoms

When I woke up Saturday morning, I ate breakfast, and then threw up. It must have been the Norco, I concluded. I also had diarrhea all day.

Nausea, diarrhea and vomiting are early indicators of COVID-19, often appearing before any sign of fever. It’s thought that the body is trying to expel the virus, just as it does when you sneeze or cough.

I was tired that Saturday. But, neither of us had a fever yet.

We had no idea what was about to happen.

Sunday — the fever began to rage

Sunday morning, I woke up tired. I had a slight fever (around 100° F). We laid down for a three-hour nap under a pile of about five blankets. It felt like the sleep of the dead. When we got up, I felt very feverish. My husband took my temperature. And we were both quite alarmed that it was 102.8° F. I do tend to run high fevers though. It’s just my body’s way. But my husband, still, did not have a fever at all.

And, weirdly, by the evening, my fever was gone.

We looked at each other and asked, “Could that have just been the coronavirus?” We wondered if it could have been that easy.

For some people, yes, it will be that easy.

The reports issued from several countries over the last few days have shown that patients with the coronavirus very often only lose their sense of taste and smell. It may be their only symptom. But, they, unknowingly, do have the virus, and are spreading it wherever they go.

But, for us, at fifty-three and sixty-one, it was not that easy. It has a good ending, don’t worry, but the middle part was a little like stepping into Robert A. Heinlein’s, “Stranger in a Strange Land.”

The next couple of days — fevers, aches, sore throats

Monday, I had a fever again, but it was only around 101.5° F. My husband developed a fever of 101.7° F. We went online and read that a fever above 101.4° F is highly suspect in diagnosing COVID-19. We began to really wonder….

But his fever disappeared by nightfall.

My husband had not been in to the office since that initial Thursday morning, but he and his partners decided to take his whole law practice (with twenty-three employees) to “virtual mode” starting on Tuesday morning. Clients were calling every few minutes trying to figure out how to navigate this new business terrain. So, he was very focused on trying to make this transition, in the midst of what seemed to likely be mild symptoms of COVID-19.

One of his clients told him about a couple in their 60’s, who had gone to Mexico, for a wedding, a week or so ago. They got massages on the beach. And they got COVID-19. They were now on ventilators and were not expected to live.

For the next few days, we both had slight fevers and were very achy. We also had scratchy throats. At this point, we were still figuring out “isolation rituals” — setting the table for lunch and taking a short walk up and down the street each afternoon. We really didn’t really that feel that sick.

Wednesday — the onslaught of the “lung phase”

And then, on Wednesday, our noses began to run — it really felt like an allergy to the pines in our yard. The runny noses only lasted for about ten hours.

But, strangely, we began to feel like something very foreign was settling into our lungs.

It’s hard to actually describe the feeling, because it wasn’t like anything we had ever felt before. We had a slight amount of congestion. And we had dry coughs. But it felt as if our lungs were gripped by something alien.

At this point, we were pretty certain that we had COVID-19. But we live in California, where there are not enough test kits. And everything we were reading made it very clear that we were not supposed to go to a testing center or to a doctor if we thought that we could deal with this on our own. They are trying to save the few test kits that they have for those who might need to be put onto a ventilator.

And, since there are not enough masks or protective equipment available to protect medical personnel, the current advice here is to “stay home and ride it out” rather than risk infecting a doctor or nurse.

I decided to take some edible marijuana in the late afternoons (not doctor-recommended — it just felt right, and I do have a medical card for my psoriatic arthritis), because I thought it might help my lungs dry out. We also started drinking A LOT of peppermint tea, taking peppermint capsules and inhaling those Vick’s Sinus sticks frequently.

Thursday, our lungs felt tighter.

Thursday night we went into “lockdown” in California.

Friday was a little scarier. That alien force had turned into a legion of foreign warriors in our lungs. We were both healthy and athletic going into this, and we knew we would probably be just fine, but we also knew that if we put too much thought into it, we might have gotten a little, or a lot, panicked.

In my journal, I described my lungs as “finding new muscles to deal with a very different sort of attack.”

Saturday morning — our lungs felt a little bit better

I have psoriatic arthritis and had already been told by my rheumatologist’s nurse to stop taking my otezla until this was over. But I know that my body tends to go into overdrive. It’s what caused me to develop Guillain–Barré syndrome years earlier. Back then, my body thought it was fighting a virus, and, instead, went on attack against the myelin sheaths around my peripheral nerves and left me partially paralyzed for months.

We kept reading about how what kills people is not the virus itself, but the body kicking into overdrive to fight it. So, I was worried. Was I doing the right thing by “not” tamping down my immune system?

But by Saturday morning, our lungs felt a bit better. My husband actually felt well enough to vacuum the house. We spent the afternoon sitting outside, in the sunshine, reading.

I look at my notes from late Saturday afternoon, and we described what we were feeling as “Well, here goes…I just went from ‘I might have COVID-19’ to ‘I probably do have COVID-19.’”

But we thought that we had make it through the worst of it.

We decided to do a little meditation to heal ourselves. We visualized the vibrational energy of the virus. And we tried to increase our vibrational energy higher than the virus’.

Our lungs seemed to be “figuring it out.” Alton’s fever was gone. My fever was less than 100° F. We were feeling better. We thought we were out of the woods.

But I was really tired. I laid on the couch while Alton cooked baked potatoes for dinner. We did a Facetime dinner with some friends. But the potato just tasted weird. It was like it didn’t have any flavor — just texture. Then, we watched Outlander, and went to bed.

Sunday, the next wave — I didn’t know that my temperature could actually go that high

Sunday morning, my fever returned. It went to 102.8° F again. And then it kept climbing. It went to 104.7° F. It did it multiple times. My husband kept having me strip and get into the shower. We had read that we weren’t supposed to take NSAIDS because it could make the illness worse. We opted to take nothing, and to let my body burn this foreign thing out of it. I learned later that this was NOT a good idea. I should have been taking Tylenol.

All day, my temperature kept reading in the 103’s and 104’s. At one point, my husband took my temperature while I was under a pile of blankets (so I am sure it was reading high) and it said 105.1° F. That’s about when we began to get really scared.

I have had pneumonia a couple of times. Once, I was in France. After riding in the back of a bus through Cognac, I found myself lying on a bench in a tasting room with a temperature of 104.2° F. I remember feeling very “out-of-it.” We ended up leaving the group we were with and went to a French hospital.

So, what seemed strange about this, is that I felt, oddly, clear. And yet, Sunday and Monday also felt quite surreal. My memory of these days is sort of like looking back through a warped mirror, with a weird clarity that comes from the survival instinct.

Monday — the text about losing our sense of taste and smell.

Monday morning, my sister sent me a text, asking if we had lost our sense of smell.

She attached the article which said that people with coronavirus frequently lose their sense of smell and taste. I hadn’t had much of an appetite the last few days. And I had noticed that my vanilla almond tea was sort of “flat.” But it wasn’t until we stuck those Vick’s Vapor Rub sticks up our noses that we realized we had completely lost our sense of smell.

I hardly got out of bed that day.

I had a “virtual appointment” with my doctor the next morning. And getting the web portal set up for the appointment was almost more than I could do.

We had been doing “virtual happy hours” with people throughout the course of this isolation. It was Alton’s friend, Bob’s birthday. We were going to take the call outside, but I asked if we could do it in bed. Our friends noticed. I had blankets up around my waist. I tried to subtly take my temperature while we were on the phone. It was 104.7° F. Amidst a moment of panic, we hung up and my husband rushed me to the shower again.

Tuesday — the “virtual doctor’s appointment”

I woke up early Tuesday morning, at 4:22 a.m., and I was starving. I felt like something in me had shifted. I went downstairs. I ate bell pepper slices and a half of an English muffin with cheese (none of which I could taste). I made a cup of tea. I thought that I had beat this virus.

I went back to bed, and woke up at 8:00 am, drenched in sweat. I took a shower, and my temperature dropped from 102° F all the way down to 97.8° F.

I had been trying to get through to my doctor since the week before, but I don’t think that his office staff really believed me when I told them that I thought we had the coronavirus.

Tuesday morning, I had a “video appointment” with my doctor. We described our symptoms, and we watched his face go from that of a doctor who probably has had a million patients calling him, thinking they have COVID-19, to the face of a doctor realizing that he was talking to his first actual patients with COVID-19.

My doctor told me one very important thing. I should have been taking Tylenol for my fever. I started it right away. It has helped to control the fever. But I was still getting occasional very high spikes (up into the 103° F and low 104° F range until Wednesday night).

He also confirmed that, yes, the loss of smell was most likely a confirming factor. And he said that unless things started to go really badly, we should stay home. There are not enough test kits in California. They need to be saved for people who might end up needing to go on a ventilator. He also said that we should not be exposing medical personnel to the virus. He told us that he thinks that there will be a “previous exposure” test coming out very soon.

Tuesday night, my husband made curried shrimp. He added extra peppers to try to enhance the flavor. He sweated up a storm but couldn’t taste the peppers. What really made us laugh is that, yesterday, “Sunbasket,” the meal service which we use, sent out an apology e-mail to its customers, saying that the curried shrimp dish was too hot, and had, apparently, been inedible. They were refunding everyone’s money.

I had a weirdly intense craving for apples. I ate two of them, savoring their coolness, but not tasting them.

Wednesday — the intense nausea and fatigue

I woke up on Wednesday with intense nausea.

I called the Orange County Health Care Agency. I thought that I should at least report our symptoms, even if they didn’t want us to come in for a test. They told me to stay home, and that we were doing the right things. They weren’t even taking reports anymore because the “Community Spread” had grown so much.

I also messaged my primary care physician. They were very concerned about my high fever. They had a triage nurse call me. She said that we were doing the right things, and to stay home, unless I had severe shortness of breath.

By evening, the nausea was terrible. My abdomen hurt. I had a fear that my organs might be shutting down.

And then I threw up, violently.

I, literally, felt like my body had just expelled a lot of the virus. I also felt like my body was smart enough to have just coated my digestive tract with bile, creating an environment in which any new viral attacks couldn’t live.

And I, weirdly, immediately, felt better.

Thursday — day 14 — I am pretty sure that I am now in recovery

I slept through the night on Wednesday. I think that the fever tried to break through — I just couldn’t get warm. But, the Tylenol seemed to keep everything under control.

And, when I woke up this morning, although I still have no appetite, I discovered that my sense of taste is coming back. I ate a kumquat and savored its tartness. I had a piece of chocolate, and it was like tasting something divine.

I am pretty confident that we are about at the end of this thing. My husband, who is a couple of days ahead of me, is feeling really good. I feel so much more energetic, and my fever has been more-or-less normal all day.

I had a “zoom” date with some girlfriends today and tried to explain what we had just been through. But some experiences are just too foreign to ever really be able to describe.

One of my friends told me that two people she knew had died of COVID-19. Another friend’s uncle just died.

I feel like I reached a point during this journey where the veil between worlds grew very thin. I don’t think that I ever really thought that I would die. But I can easily see how people do.