Interview with a COVID-19 Survivor

It was bound to happen in the current global pandemic scenario – someone close to me caught the dreaded Covid-19 virus. I had a lot of questions when I found out, and so did a lot of people, so I thought it would be helpful to share this information so we are all better prepared against our common enemy.

My friend is a fit late thirties male who lives in Metro Manila, Philippines. He had no other underlying issues but was hospitalised for 22 days at St. Luke’s Medical Center, one of the best hospitals in the Philippines. To protect his privacy, I will be calling him a different name in this interview – Louis. Like in Interview with the Vampire, get it? Oh gosh, am I dating myself with this reference? Anyway, on to the interview!

Let’s start at the beginning. What were your first symptoms?
During the first week of March, I had headaches and felt weak and fatigued even though I had no fever. I also got chills even though it wasn’t cold.
Then over the weekend, I lost my my sense of taste. It wasn’t that the food was bland, but they didn’t taste how they were supposed to taste; for example Jollibee chicken joy tasted too salty. I couldn’t bear to eat anything and could only drink fruit juices, so I decided to go to the emergency room to do an initial check up on March 11.

At this point, did you suspect that this was COVID-19?
Not really, because I hadn’t read extensively about all of the COVID-19 symptoms and only knew that it started with fever, flu, and cough, which I didn’t have. I just went to the hospital because my loss of taste was making me eat less and I felt very weak. I couldn’t even walk for a short 2 blocks without getting very exhausted.

When you got to the ER, what did they do?
At that time they were already starting to get isolated cases of COVID-19, so they asked me if I had fever, colds, or flu and if I had travelled recently or had contact with someone who had COVID-19, all of which were negative.
They accepted me into the ER and did a blood test and X-ray. The initial results of my X-ray were clear, but my blood tests showed low white blood cells and low platelet count. They tested me for Dengue because of the latter, but it came out negative. Since I was very weak, they admitted me for further observation.

When did they start to suspect that this was COVID-19?
The next day, March 12, I got a call from the Taguig LGU (the government’s local representatives from Department of Health) regarding contact tracing. They had discovered that I had come in contact with someone with COVID-19 when we attended the same spinning class. We also happen to live in the same building, but we don’t know each other personally and I have not encountered him in our condo before.
This brand new information made me into a PUI (Person Under Investigation), so the hospital transferred me to an isolated floor for infectious diseases.

Did they swab you for COVID-19? Can you describe the process?
The day after, on March 13, they did a swab test on my nose and throat. They take a long stick which they insert into the very end of your nose, and into your throat to the point that you feel like throwing up. A nurse mentioned that some people actually do throw up. I didn’t do that, but it was painful. It’s not something that you will look forward to.
In fact when they asked me about what time I wanted to do my second swab on April 1, I said, “Hmm, what time am I ready? I will never be ready.”

Did you have more symptoms after that?
On March 13 I experienced diarrhoea and difficulty in breathing. I started coughing because I couldn’t breathe properly. The nurses looked at my pulse oximeter which monitors oxygen saturation and saw that my reading was below 70. Supposedly a normal reading should be 95 and above.
After this they ran tests and put me on a simple oxygen support and advised me how to do deep breathing.
They also did an X-ray and saw that my lungs were cloudy, even though 2 days before, it was clear. When they saw this and noticed that my breathing hadn’t improved, they administered high flow oxygen therapy (HFOT).

Well that escalated quickly.
Yes, this all happened within the span of 2 days.

But I read that a lot of people usually take a turn for the worse around the 10th day. Since you had symptoms before checking into the hospital, maybe this was your 10th day? How long were you on oxygen?
I was on HFOT for 6 days. I was so weak that I couldn’t get off the bed to walk even a short distance to the toilet. I had to do my business in a urinal bottle or bed pan.
After that I was on simple oxygen support for 8 days.

Can you describe what the difficulty in breathing felt like?
Whenever I had to remove the oxygen tube, after about a minute, I would feel like my chest was heavy and no oxygen was going in – like the sensation you feel when you hold your breath.

What other treatments were you on?
For the 6 days that I was on HFOT, they ran a bunch of tests and combined different medicines, I think some of them were antibiotics that are also being used to treat HIV. They asked for permission to treat me as if I were COVID-19 positive because the test results still hadn’t come back after 3 days but I was negative for all other disease tests.
They injected medicines into my IV drip, but I also had to swallow two gigantic pills every morning and evening. My arm became swollen at one point. It wasn’t comfortable at all, but somehow I managed to get some sleep.

On the seventh day, what happened?
I was starting to feel better, so they slowly reduced my oxygen support. For example, if it started at 100, they dropped it to 90, and so on. When it was at 50 and I still felt good, they removed me from HFOT and put me back on simple oxygen support until March 26.
My appetite also started to come back after I was removed from HFOT, so I started eating (previously I was purely on IV drip). I was encouraged to eat so I could get more nutrients and feel better.

When did you fully recover?
I actually already felt well after they had removed the simple oxygen support. But we just needed to finish my antibiotics and other meds and my COVID-19 test still had no results yet. After consulting with the authorities, they decided to release me after they did an X-ray test which showed that my lungs were no longer cloudy, on April 4, but with the caveat that I had to quarantine myself for 14 days after my release.
However, on the day of my release, my first swab test results happened to come back, and it was positive. I definitely had COVID-19.
My second swab test results (which was taken on April 1) arrived on April 5 – it was negative, which means I no longer had the virus.

Did you still feel any symptoms after being released?
No, I feel well now, though of course I haven’t over-exerted myself yet, just to make sure I don’t fall sick again. Actually on my release day I insisted on not being brought out on a wheelchair because I wanted to test my mobility. I had about 5 days of being mobile by then, so perhaps that was why I was already feeling healthy at that point.

How much was your total hospital bill?
The bill amounted to P950,000 for confinement in a private room, no ICU.
Luckily for me, my company’s medical insurance cap was P350,000 and my company footed the rest of the bill and wired the money to my bank account so I didn’t need to pay anything myself.
However, I read about this guy whose bill reached P1.4m and he couldn’t pay for it, so he had to ask for help to get it paid before he could be released.

What is your review of the hospital?
The medical staff were all in proper PPE and they were prepared for that kind of situation. There were around 3 floors dedicated for COVID-19 patients, and the ratio of nurses to patients was probably around 1 is to 5.
They were definitely very busy around that time; at one point the rooms were filled that they couldn’t even immediately accommodate an important politician who caught the virus.
I was quite happy with them overall, I even ordered food for the medical staff on my birthday which I spent in the hospital.

Did you have any emotional struggles, like were you afraid of dying at any point?
I don’t think I thought of death, but during my first week, it was very scary to think that I would be dependent on a machine in order to breathe. I was worried that it wouldn’t improve and I would be like this in the future.
The most difficult part was going through it alone. Because if your family was there, at least someone would be there to support you, not just with words of encouragement but also to help you physically, because the nurses can’t be there all the time since they have other patients to attend to.
So that was the main difficulty I encountered – not so much thinking about death, actually, but rather, what the long term impact would be on me and going through it alone.

Did you have any underlying conditions? What do you think helped you through this experience?
I think it helped that I had no underlying conditions and I am generally healthy. I am not overweight, exercise frequently and eat a balanced diet though I didn’t really drink multivitamins regularly. I don’t fall sick a lot; the last time I was admitted to a hospital was when I was 7 years old.
But I also think that my mental health was a factor. Maybe it’s just innate for me to try to be positive even during times when it’s difficult to, but I think this attitude really helped me during my confinement.
For example, during moments when I had just buzzed for a nurse’s help but it took her a while to get to me, I would tell myself, “Okay Louis, you can do this, you can stand up by yourself, you can walk towards the fridge, it’s only a few steps!” Then I would slowly get up, sit down for a bit, take deep breaths, inch forward, rest again, and so on until I do manage to get to the fridge.
I would constantly tell myself, “You are not going to get well, Louis, if you are just going to lie down and not do anything.”
I think that more than the pre-existing conditions, it is your positive mental attitude that will help you survive this. Because if you panic and succumb to anxiety, you won’t be helping yourself when you get caught up in a cycle of thinking about your fears and deteriorating even more. Positivity is key.

Oops this is super lengthy already so Imma end it here! Thanks for reading, hope that was helpful!