My name is Dan – I reside in northeastern Pennsylvania and this is my ARDS survivorship story. On Saturday March 7th 2020 I attended a festival in Brooklyn New York and at this Festival they crammed way too many people into way too small of a space, a decision that I would soon come to regret.
By March 10th which was a Tuesday something felt medically wrong with me. I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. It was a new feeling. By Thursday the 12th though I knew something was direly wrong. I ended up coming home sick from work and melted into the couch, and I remained there for the better part of the next 3 – 4 days. As I got progressively worse, I was suffering from a very high fever chills and as the weekend progressed, confusion started to sit in.
By Monday the 16th my wife was able to get a hold of our primary care physician. I went to see her – I got swabbed got sent for an x-ray. By the time the x-rays came back my oxygen had already started declining into the mid 80s, and when she saw the x-rays which were not good, she sent me directly to the emergency room. I was there for not even 6 hours and I was already sedated and innovated and not long after that discussion was had and I was placed on EO and in an induced coma.
The next day I got sent to the bigger hospital in same Health System about an hour away. From here I ended up having pneumonia. I ended up with sepsis, ARDS and all those things seem to be going hand in hand with each other. I spent the better part of the next few weeks in that hospital, in the ICU. Eventually made my way to the step down unit where I was working on learning how to walk again and how to chew because you get deep conditioned when you’re in a coma.
Eventually I got discharged from there to do some more recovery at home. The fmo left me with some neuropathy and the virus left me with a good handful of other things including cardiac issues and paralyzed diaphragm and a handful of other things that I continue to work on.
I’ve seen many specialists, fortunate enough to be in an area where I am centrally located to many of the fine institutions on know the East Coast. I just continue to to work on myself, hoping to get myself back to my pre ARDS situation. As for now I find it important to uh help educate the community and raise awareness because if we can stop the progression at hours with medication, awareness, you know whatever may be it’s going to provide a whole different pathway down the road. It’s going to be happier for everybody involved. Hopefully my story can help bring some light and comfort to others that may be in the situation or has a loved one for that’s in the situation.