'No One Knows What We're Dealing With:' Coronavirus Positive RN

Editor's Note: The registered nurse featured in this story agreed to share her experience with Patch under an agreement of anonymity. The author verified her credentials and her employment in New Jersey before agreeing.

NEW JERSEY - It started off as a cough, one that Sarah, a registered nurse for more than a decade, attributed to allergies. Despite the fact that a coworker had tested positive for novel coronavirus or COVID-19, she thought the tickle in her throat was due to her sitting home with her cat for three days.

She was wrong.

Contracting coronavirus and seeing the impact first hand prompted Sarah to share her story with Patch in the hopes that readers take the pandemic seriously.

"The cough got a little worse the next day, and my temperature started to go up," Sarah said, noting that she was home under self-quarantine at that point. "I went to urgent care, called ahead to give them the head's up, and got tested."

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Twenty-four hours later her fever spiked and she received the call that she had tested positive. But Sarah's coronavirus journey began a week earlier when she received notification that she had been in close contact with someone who was being tested.

"I was instructed to self-quarantine at home until further notice," she said. "When results came in three days later that my coworker tested positive for the virus."

Her quarantine was extended one more week.

Soon after testing positive, she was contacted by the health department official.

"He went through a checklist of places I might have been during the last seven days, which included bars, clubs, festivals, concerts, shopping malls, tattoo parlors, salons, banks, family dinners, happy hours, weddings, etc," Sarah said. "Then he asked if I'd traveled by plane, helicopter, bus, train, ride share, or boat in the last seven days."

The answer to all of those questions was no. But Sarah said the questions had her thinking about social distancing and the choice to self-quarantine.

"I didn't have any symptoms until four days ago, so had I chosen not to follow the self-quarantine guidelines, think of how many others I would have put at risk," she said.

And that is why seeing spring break and Saint Patrick's Day revelers distresses her so. Seeing all of the people who could be infected mingling in a large crowd. That type of spread could overwhelm the healthcare system.

"All of the pictures and videos I've seen over the last week or so of people partying and going out have made me steaming mad," she said. "I saw pictures of Clearwater Beach packed with beachgoers and it sickened me. I don't know how much worse it has to get before people will take this seriously."

Things are not great for Sarah now, stuck at home and still symptomatic.

"I've been better, but I guess I've been worse. I am on my fifth day of cough and third day of fever. I have a splitting headache and nasal congestion," she said. "I've also had some intermittent nausea."

Sarah noted that at this stage in her career she does not work in a hospital setting, but knows what those colleagues are going through.

"In my career, I've worked through hurricanes and blizzards, slept on ER gurneys and hospital floors, because it's just what we do as nurses," she said. "Nurses and other first responders put their lives and families second in order to keep our communities safe and healthy."

Sarah noted that this virus outbreak is completely uncharted territory and that many have concern for lack of resources, exposure, protocols, personal protective equipment, rooms, and more. She said that these concerns have left her with reservations about returning to work and she has concern for her colleagues.

"I truly feel for my friends who are still working in hospitals. I've heard that some hospitals are making their staff work even after being exposed to patients who test positive," Sarah said. "I understand the catch 22 of needing healthcare workers to take care of the sick, but what about the sick healthcare workers themselves? It's not fair or ethical. And it will only further spread the disease."

Because not everyone has the luxury of knowing they were exposed, Sarah said it was critical that people practice social distancing and self-quarantining.

"Listen to what the professionals are saying, because you could literally save lives," she said.

For her part, Sarah said no one really knows how long she can expect to be sick for and that the doctor who gave her her diagnosis was in so much shock that he forgot to give her actual medical advice.

"I was told to take Tylenol for my fever and stay home," she said. "There has been very little guidance and no follow-up, which is disconcerting. No one knows what we're dealing with."

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