Local resident recovering from COVID-19 warns about its reality; ‘I was scared’

Michelle poses with her five daughters, from left, Madison, Taylor, Chloe, Lucy and Ella.

(photos provided)

by Rich Rosentreter

Michelle Reardon with her daughter Lucy, now 8-years old, who contracted the coronavirus from her mother. (photo provided)

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to plague the nation, the North Country has been pretty much spared a severe outbreak, but that doesn’t mean we have been unscathed. Tupper Laker Michelle Reardon, who also works as a nurse at the local Adirondack Health Medical Center, is still recovering from the virus and warns it is a dreadful and scary experience. She believes there are too many people who are not taking the pandemic seriously.

The Free Press recently spoke to Mrs. Reardon, who also described her bout with the virus on social media’s Facebook on August 10. She introduced her experience online by announcing that, for some, the coronavirus isn’t real until it touches their lives.

“I’m starting to feel and see that this virus is not going to be real to some people until they know somebody who has it or has had it,” she wrote. “COVID is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was and is the worst illness I’ve ever experienced.”

How it started

Mrs. Reardon said her first symptoms started on June 22 with gastrointestinal symptoms (also known as gi symptoms), which includes heartburn, indigestion/dyspepsia, bloating and constipation and loss of appetite.

She said the day before got tested she was at work and “didn’t feel very good, but I really didn’t think I had COVID.”.

“As soon as I left work, I felt sick to my stomach, but I felt fine when I woke up in the morning the next day and I went to work. Then I got tested that day and I was positive. I was shocked,” she told the Free Press adding that she had been careful and was taking all the precautionary measures recommended by health professionals to prevent getting the coronavirus.

Michelle wasn’t the only one surprised by the positive virus diagnosis - her family and friends were too.

“We were all shocked, nobody could believe it,” she said.

And her health soon began to deteriorate. Michelle said that the symptoms progressed into losing her senses of taste and smell. “Then I had this awful taste in my mouth where I couldn’t eat or drink. I went two weeks without eating and barely drinking.”

On the fourth day, she became short of breath along with getting severe head pain.

“I had some extreme pressure and pain in my head. I get migraines and this was nothing like a migraine. I had a sore throat that would come and go but I always felt like I had this lump or something in my throat. Then came the chest pain,” Michelle wrote, and that after a week her chest filled up with mucous and she couldn’t cough it up. “It was like it was stuck in there and I couldn’t breath.”

She said she then called the Department of Health, who told her to call 911 while she was still able to talk.

“It was one of the scariest moments of my life. At times I would find myself hunched over and gasping for air and sleeping or laying on my stomach to breath better,” she wrote.

After more than 16 days after her positive test the DOH cleared her to come off isolation and go back to work.

“So that’s what I did for one and a half days, went back to work. I thought if I just went back to my life I would feel better, my body wasn’t ready. Then I felt like things were getting worse. Like I was having more symptoms. My hands started feeling tingly, I had body and muscle aches, joint pain, fatigue, my throat was getting sore all over,” she wrote. “I ended up with a temperature of 103 for three days, two weeks after I was determined to be resolved and recovered by the DOH. My gi symptoms continued for a total of 45 days. My chest pain seemed to be getting worse along with the shortness of breath. I was then prescribed some meds. My joint pain gets so bad sometimes I can’t even hold a pen or write.”

Michelle also reported that she started getting heart palpitations, “that wake me up out of a sound sleep and that I can feel clear into my throat. I did go back to work last week for half days. I take two naps a day on the days I work. I’m getting used to living with the chest pain, the joint pain, body aches and nerve pain, I just cannot get used to living with this fatigue.”

Michelle speaks

Now after eight weeks since being diagnosed with COVID, when contacted by the Free Press, Michelle spoke about how she is doing now and provided more details about her experience.

“I’m still the same. Yesterday I did a little too much, did some laundry and vacuumed. I still have sore joints and body aches. I do a little and feel fatigued. I can’t do very much, I get really tired in what I do,” she said.

Michelle said the reason she posted her ordeal onto social media was that she was getting a lot of messages from people and referred to it as “Tupper talk,” as rumors began to spread as a report came in the news about a person who worked at the medical center that had the coronavirus.

“I just wanted to get it out there and be real with everyone,” she said, adding that she also wanted to let people know it can happen to anyone, even those in a small town in the Adirondacks such as Tupper Lake.

“I did everything. I didn’t do anything with my kids, we practiced social distancing. I even pulled my kids out of day care. I was doing everything that I thought was right and still ended up getting sick,” she said.

Michelle was asked what is required to beat the virus and the steps she has been taking to get better.

“Mostly I’ve been resting a lot,” she said, and is taking a few medications to help subside some of the symptoms. “I’ve never taken meds in my life for anything. I do take something everyday now.”

She also stressed that her bout with COVID-19 has been the worst experience of her life.

“Yes, definitely. It was scary. I was scared. I read so much and heard all the bad stuff,”she said, adding that her fear grew as the symptoms worsened after she found out she was positive. “A few days later when I started getting short of breath and having chest pains, I really got scared. Here I was alone, I really had nobody. I could just text my family or talk on the phone. Nobody was allowed in the house or even allowed outside of my door. It was really scary. Just being alone, I was really scared just to fall asleep.”

Her voice began to crackle as she spoke about fearing for her life. “I was worried I might not even wake up.”

But her fears were multiplied when she found out she had passed the virus onto her own seven-year-old daughter Lucy.

“When I found out it was awful. I was scared, she was scared,” Michelle said, adding that a few days after finding out her daughter tested positive, she learned two other people she was in contact with also tested positive for the coronavirus. “It came from me and I just wanted to die thinking that I got these people sick and I tried to do everything right.”

And the thought of infecting her daughter was a heavy weight.

“Every day I was making sure she had no symptoms. Every day she was scared for me. She was going through a lot too, not being able to be with me and knowing that she was positive. She always associated the coronavirus with dying because that’s all that was ever on the news,” Michelle said.

Now, thankfully, her daughter and the other individuals are healthy and never did get symptoms as bad as Michelle.

“My daughter actually had no symptoms and one other did. Luckily none of them had any underlying conditions, but if they had, who knows what could have happened. I don’t know if I’d have been able to live with myself,” Michelle said. “Oh my God, I was so relieved that even the one who was sick that all of their symptoms had gone away. It was a huge relief.”

Michelle turned emotional as she described her greatest fear during the worst of the her virus symptoms.

“That I would never see my kids again,” her voice again crackling. “That something would happen to me and just being alone and not seeing them again. I have five daughters, I was very scared of that.”

“I don’t think people are taking it as serious as it is. I feel as if people are not in the hospital it’s just like a cold or flu. But it’s nothing like that,” she added.

Michelle said she has passed the worst part of the pain and suffering the virus caused her.

“Now it’s mainly the fatigue. I worked just five hours on Monday, but I felt like I just worked forty hours in one day,” she said.

Michelle also posted her message to others.

“I’m not the same and it’s unknown how long I will have these problems- if they will resolve with time or if they will be lifelong. COVID has changed my life and there are a huge number of people like me that neither die from COVID nor have a mild case that resolves in a few weeks,” she wrote on Facebook. “This is real, to those of you who are not taking it seriously I hope you do now. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I have or someone you love to experience the same thing. Wear a mask, social distance, help others around you to live. Because for me, this isn't the way I want to live.”

Prior to being diagnosed she was taking the virus seriously – and she still does - and was asked if it bothers her that not everybody takes it equally as seriously.

“Yes it does bother me. I just think that there’s just so much misinformation out there and people just really need to know just how debilitating it can be, even if you are not sick enough to be hospitalized. People need to know just how real it is!”