LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — A man from Luzerne County shares his story of getting the coronavirus and recovering from it.
The 60-year-old man from the Wyoming Valley isn't quite ready to give us his last name, but Marty wants to share his story, so you all know how serious this virus is and also know that people are recovering from it.
In fact, there likely will be thousands of stories of recovery to share here in Pennsylvania. The vast majority of people who get this will recover.
But Marty and his wife Judie describe two frightening weeks that started two weeks ago when he woke up with a fever.
He said for the first week he had just a fever and horrible body aches. Then came breathing problems.
"What it felt like was as you would take a breath, you would reach a certain point when it would be a little tickle and force you into a coughing spell. That's kind of what got me in trouble the one day. I decided to take a shower, with having a mask on and going up two flights of stairs, by the time I did get to the shower, I was gasping for air quite literally. That got into a panic because the more I wanted to breathe, the more you got into a coughing spell, the less you were able to breathe. I literally sat myself down and said, 'calm down, slow and easy.' It was a panic moment for sure."
Marty had symptoms for almost a full two weeks, but he has been free of fever for a few days. He still says he feels week, wiped out by what he went through.
The CDC lists guidelines for when you are over a coronavirus infection and are no longer contagious.
The CDC says there are three things to look for:
- when you have no fever for 72 hours,
- your other symptoms have improved.
- at least seven days have passed since your symptoms started.
Marty can check off all three, but his wife Judie and son must stay quarantined two weeks, just to make sure they don't get this.