Who here has had a serious respiratory infection/issue?

Submitted by Special Agent Utah on April 11th, 2020 at 7:43 PM

In all this COVID madness, it seems there’s a lot of “If you don’t die, then it’s all good” type attitude going around. Which is incredibly easy to say when you’re not the one fighting it.

Twelve years ago I had an episode of pneumonia that put me in the hospital for 5 days and it was, without a doubt, was the most painful and frightening experience I’ve ever had. I literally felt like I was fighting for every breath and I shudder just thinking about going through something like that, or worse, again. 

So has anyone else had a serious respiratory condition that makes you relate to what a terrible ordeal some of the infected people are going through? 

UMProud

April 11th, 2020 at 7:50 PM ^

Had coughing, fever and lungs filling up with fluid in late January this year...when I laid down it felt like I couldn't get enough air.  That was as close as I hope I ever get.

gruden

April 11th, 2020 at 9:21 PM ^

Interesting, Jan-Feb I had something very similar, except I had chills instead of a fever.  I've had a number of lung issues over the course of my life, including pneumonia when I was younger, but there where times when this felt worse.  It took about 6 weeks to get over it.

In late March I was exposed to caronavirus and a family member got it, but I completely sailed past it with no symptoms whatsoever.  Based on the timing and symptoms I sometimes wonder if they were related, but it's impossible to say for sure.

StirredNotShaken

April 11th, 2020 at 10:07 PM ^

If you had the chills that means your body was contracting muscles in order to raise your internal body temperature in order to create an inhospitable environment and to fight a virus or infection, i.e. you had a fever. Based on symptoms and the fact you didn't get Corona after being close to a family member its probably safe to assume you had it already. If and when antibody testing becomes available you should definitely get in line. 

The Mad Hatter

April 11th, 2020 at 8:19 PM ^

Me and my entire immediate family are all susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia. It's terrifying, especially when one of the kids gets it.

So while we're more likely to have serious symptoms if/when we catch the rona, we're also better prepared to treat it at home than most people.

And I'm not 100% convinced we haven't had it yet. My son teetered on the brink of hospitalization in mid February. A few weeks later we all had something that matched rona symptoms pretty closely, but we didn't see a doctor or get a test.

NarsEatForFree

April 11th, 2020 at 8:28 PM ^

I’ve dealt with asthma my whole life. I, of course, have had a flare up the past few weeks.  No other covid symptoms tho but I’m still not leaving the house just in case. 

MGoGrendel

April 12th, 2020 at 4:20 PM ^

I ski a lot and got high altitude sickness one time in Colorado after skiing there for years.  Fluid in the lungs is brutal.  Luckily, breathing with the aid of oxygen for a few days clears it up.  Picking a resort with a base below 8,000 ft keeps me out of trouble 

My family and I don’t get the flu and I don’t get flu shots.  All this to say that I’m Very Thankful, but understand how brutal this can be for those who get the flu or COVID-19

bluegary

April 11th, 2020 at 8:30 PM ^

My wife had the h1n1 flu which led to double pneumonia. She ended up on a ventilator for 12 days. It was the longest 12 days of my life. She was struggling just to breathe. It took her 5 months to recover and get back to work. She is doing great. But she is terrified of getting this covid 19. We get and understand this stay at home order. Nobody needs to go through what she went through. Stay safe everyone. 

blue in dc

April 11th, 2020 at 8:49 PM ^

I experienced a couple hours of ventilator post open heart surgery,  Not an experience I’d like to repeat (the surgery or the ventilator), but the couple hours that I was between semiconscious and conscious was definitely the part of the experience that I most vividly remember as being the worst. 

jmblue

April 11th, 2020 at 8:46 PM ^

I had pneumonia a couple of years ago.  That was as sick as I’ve ever been.  I remember my lungs crackling when I tried to breathe and having brutal coughing attacks that lasted 2-3 minutes and left my lungs feeling like they were on fire.  Other viruses have made me feel like crap but that truly made me suffer.  I was incredibly grateful to get prescription meds that took it out.  I couldn’t imagine trying to fight it off naturally.

Blue_by_U

April 11th, 2020 at 8:59 PM ^

Developed double lung pneumonia a couple years ago, it was difficult to walk a flight of stairs. Doc said I could go to the hospital or try Z-pac and Albuterol as she figured the hospital wasn't an option. Three or four days later I was fine and running stadium stairs again. Was there a point to the question or just a need to get back in your hysteria cycle? 

Special Agent Utah

April 11th, 2020 at 9:23 PM ^

So to paraphrase your statement:

“I got sick, but not enough to be hospitalized. It was unpleasant but I got better. Aren’t I amazing? Clearly this is the pattern everyone follows with major respiratory ailments, so what’s the big deal?”

You know when I posted this I thought to myself; who would be the first snarky douche to take something like this, where people could share their experiences and feelings, and turn it into a platform to be a total ass?

Congrats old boy, you win the trophy. 

Blue_by_U

April 12th, 2020 at 11:38 AM ^

Coming from the biggest alarmist pussy on the board...I take that as high praise...I'll put that imaginary trophy on my shelf right next to my award for fake level of concern.

Special Agent Utah

April 12th, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^

Well at least I don’t make up stories about having double pneumonia and then running stadium stairs a few days later to make everyone think I’m some macho asshole. 
 

Running stadium stairs with double pneumonia....Boy did that shit get called out others for the lie it is. 

Blue_by_U

April 12th, 2020 at 11:51 AM ^

Coming from the biggest alarmist pussy on the board...I take that as high praise...I'll put that imaginary trophy on my shelf right next to my award for fake level of concern. Honestly once I saw your Freep level bullshit...I couldn't resist answering yet another question designed to stir the pot...

Special Agent Utah

April 12th, 2020 at 12:27 PM ^

So you couldn’t resist being a total fucking asshole in the middle of a crises that has shut down most of the nation....Got it. 
 

Well at least you’re being true to yourself. 
 

Hey, why don’t you go volunteer at a hospital that has been hit hard? Ain’t nothing stopping you from doing so Superman. 

Blue_by_U

April 12th, 2020 at 9:29 PM ^

Well I'm an EMT...next...and I did...sorry your candy ass can't fathom it's possible to deal with some pain...never said it was easy, never said it was normal...I just didn't puss out and hide like some scared little bitch. I ran in the summer on the 100+ days to condition for house fires. Thank goodness fucking chicken shits like you didn't run our space program in the 60s...I can play your fuck you game all day special agent 

MileHighWolverine

April 11th, 2020 at 9:03 PM ^

I'm convinced 3/4 of my family got it late January. Laid me out for a week and then had 2 weeks of not being able to complete a sentence without coughing/choking the last few words. Terrible. Touching the hair on my head hurt and I slept for 4 days straight with a dry hacking cough.

There are articles now that confirm it was in Colorado around that time so I'm waiting on the antibody test to confirm. Hopefully that's what it was.

clown question

April 11th, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^

Glad you are now feeling better!

The Colorado January date is based on backwards modeling, and we know how wishy-washy disease modeling can be. Regardless, even if it actually was in Colorado in late Jan it would have been just a handful of people.

Almost all the testing data from even late Feb/March shows that people with symptoms were considerbly more likely to test negative (and have something else) rather than positive.

Esterhaus

April 11th, 2020 at 9:18 PM ^

My household contracted it cusp of January-February when a Chinese national, I saw his passport, coughed what seemed like a quart of hot snot on my head and neck while descending to ORD. I promptly gave it to my wife, an immunocompromised cancer patient, without knowing I was infected. My wife suffered terrible feeling and dry cough but not much else. After more than one week I was coughing up handfuls of saturated bloody foam each hour or less. I wanted to die and have never felt so aweful before with exception of food borne illness contracted in rural Russia, in which both ends of my gastrointestinal tract were forcefully ejecting concurrently in various bathtubs. Said foam reverted to white, relatively dry and not colored like bacterial. Still felt like shards of broken glass bouncing around inside my lungs, and I’ve never smoked although I did operate an air hammer when young under terrible conditions. The virus and disease are real, however, our lockdown was the wrong response and Fauci should be lined up against a wall with Witmer, Lightfoot and Pritzker behind him and then …. My problem now is after weeks recovered my mental acuity is shot and I cannot sustain abstract thought, and my vocation as a patent lawyer requires abstract, as well as pre-infection and so what do I do? Deliver sub-par or chance that I may get things correct? This is where it has really zapped me.