Omaha Steaks in the trash

Covid-19 pretty much sucked.  I kept a detailed log of time/temperature and meds.

Day 0 (didn't know what I had), was just a mildly itchy throat and non-productive cough.
Day 1, woke up with a fever, figured this could be covid-19, quarantine began.  By the evening, I had a really bad headache and took some advil for it.
Day 2, I felt well enough to work from bed.  Fever was still there, but barely.
Day 3, still barely running a fever, but feeling worse.  No energy, just wanted to try to sleep.
Day 4, the fever is a little worse, 100-101 most of the day.

By day 4, qualifications for testing were relaxed, and I was eligible for testing, so I drove myself to the local walk-in clinic and was tested first for strep, then flu, and when both were negative, they tested me for covid-19.  That test took 5 days to get a result.
 
Days 1-4, I only took advil occasionally for head/neck aches.  I figured, fever is the body's way of fighting, so let it run as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

Days 5-11 I was taking advil and tylenol pretty frequently, at times every 4h to keep the fever under control.  Towards the end of this time, I was also using a cold wash cloth on my head, neck, and chest/belly, to help keep the fever down.  Day 11 was the last time I took any fever reducers.

Day 5, fever bouncing around from 95.7 - 102.
Day 6, fever bouncing around from 98.8 - 102.3. 
Day 7, fever 99 - 102.6
Day 8, 99.2 - 102.2.  GI symptoms start...diarrhea, nausea.  My covid-19 test comes back positive.
Day 8-9 around 1am on the 9th day, my wife is concerned by my breathing.  I'm basically panting...short shallow breaths.  She wants me to go to the hospital, and I'm tired of fighting and figure maybe they can do something helpful.  So, I take an ambulance ride to the ER.  The ambulance techs can't hit a vein.  BP is like 110/40.  ER nurse has no trouble finding a vein, starts an IV and takes a blood sample.  They roll in a portable x-ray and do a chest x-ray.  After an hour or two, the ER doc says my chest x-ray is clear, I'm not that sick, and I need to go home.  A week or so later, I see the radiology report, and it says I had pneumonia.
Day 9, 97.6 - 101.7.  Started 11 days of azithromycin.
Day 10, 97.6 - 100.3.  Started 10 days of hydroxychloroquine (had to get this Rx via family connections as the local doctors would not prescribe anything beyond the z-pak).

I didn't record it, but sometime late in the first week before the ER trip, I blacked out while trying to brush my teeth.  I'm pretty religious about brushing and flossing, and for a couple of days, I couldn't even get myself up to brush.  When the ER released me, they asked if I could walk to the lobby or needed to be wheeled.  I said I could try to walk.  I got light headed on the way, and just made it to a sofa like thing in the lobby where I blacked out.  Around this time, I was so weak, my wife gave me a chair which I put in front of my sink, so I could brush my teeth sitting.  I ended up sitting on the shower floor for a couple of showers.

Day 11, 98.6 - 100.4.  Early morning, I puked until my stomach was empty...looked like just water.
Day 12, 98.3 - 100.3
Day 13, 97.8 - 99.8
Day 14, 97.6 - 99.3
Day 15, 97.6 - 99.1
Day 16, 98.4 - 98.8
Day 17, 97.0 - 98.8
Day 18, 97.7 - 98.8.  Drove back to the clinic to get retested.  They won't test me at their outdoor setup without a doctor's order, and I'm not allowed inside because I'm known to be covid-19 positive.  I go home and try doing a video consult so I can get a doctor's order for retesting.  They refuse to write the order.  An hour later, they call me back and say if I go back to the clinic, they will retest me outside.  I get there and am told they won't test me outside, but I can come in through the back door, go to an exam room, and they'll retest me.  The doctor arrives, examines me, we talk for 20-30 minutes, and he says there's no need to retest me, I'm symptom-free and can leave quarantine.  I argue that I want to be really sure I don't put my wife and kids through this, and have to know for sure.  They send me back out to the parking lot and I'm retested.  60h later, the test comes back positive.  I call the clinic to see when I can come back for another retest, they'll have to look into that and get back to me.  Hours later, they do call me, and say one week from the last time I was tested.

Day 19, 97.6 - 98.1
Day 20, 97.4 - 98.7
Day 21, 97.7 - 97.9
Day 22, 97.1 - 98.1
Day 23, 97.2 - 98.5
Day 24, 97.4 - 97.7
Day 25, 97.3 - 98.5.  It's been a week since my last positive retest, so I head to the clinic first thing in the morning.  When I get there, I'm told by the "greeters" who sit under a shelter outside the front door (in gloves and masks) that they're no longer doing outdoor testing, and I can't go inside because I'm known to have been covid positive.  Having gotten this sort of run around the last time I came for retesting, I'm pissed, and I ignore them, walk inside, and say I'm covid positive and am here for retesting.  Front desk lady was not amused (everyone, myself included, is masked).  She says I need to wait in my car and they'll let me know when they're ready for me.  Time passes.  I eventually find out they called my home phone before my cell phone, but they do eventually call my cell and tell me to knock on the back door and they'll give me a test kit to take back to my car.  60h later, this one comes back
Day 26, 97.7 - 97.8
Day 27, 97.3 - 97.7
Day 28 second retest comes back negative.  Quarantine ended.

I'm still a little weak (don't have as much energy as I should), but basically feel better.

PigBeanUs said:

bubbajack said:

Good greef man. That sounds like a battle. I am very happy that you are on the mend and the family is OK. For the life of me, I do not understand why Docs are not prescribing HCQ. We maybe could have saved a lot more people from this $hit. Time will tell.

What is HCQ?

Hydroxychloroquine is one of the drugs that was used to treat/prevent malaria.  AFAIK, somewhere along the way, it was discovered to also have anti-inflammatory and immuno-suppressive effects.  It's commonly prescribed to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.  I don't know where the idea came from to use it for these Chinese coronaviruses, but it apparently was used as a treatment in the past for SARS and MERS.  For me, it seemed to get the fever under control within a day of starting it.

Because Trump pushed it as a possible treatment, its use seems to have been politicized, and so you have people on the right saying everyone should try it, and people on the left saying it won't do squat for your covid-19 and might kill you. 

If anyone else in my family catches this, I'll be making some phone calls to get them an Rx for it, preferably much sooner in the illness than I got it.  To me, it definitely seemed to help, and at 200mg 2xDay, I noticed no side effects with the possible exception of "read the bottle, and don't take it on an empty stomach".  The morning I puked, I'd taken both HCQ and one of the zpak pills together about 45min earlier (before breakfast).  After that, I started a routine of taking HCQ immediately after breakfast and after dinner, and azithromycin immediately after lunch.

I had read and been told about some of the early advice that ibuprofen might make it worse.  Advil is what we had, and though my wife ended up going out and getting extra strength Tylenol, historically, Tylenol hasn't been an effective fever reducer for me.  Over 102F, is like the next level of feeling like crap for me...so I took what I could to try keeping the fever below 102.