It was a simple case of COVID. So why was the pain off the charts?

As told to Rachael Lavon

My story begins as thousands of other did — at the end of March I came down with flu-like symptoms.

After checking in with my doctor and doing a swab, I was diagnosed with COVID-19 at the beginning of April. My options were limited in terms of in-person care, so the diagnosis of pneumonia was also made over the phone without the requisite X-ray.

As a busy mother in my early forties, I wasn’t considered a high-risk patient, but my doctor prescribed Zithromax and Plaquenil (also known as hydroxychloroquine) over the phone and told me to start taking them right away. I started the medication immediately as per my doctors’ instructions, but to my surprise I felt increasingly worse as the day wore on.

In the middle of the night I began having stomach pains and got up to use the bathroom. The next thing I knew, I was flat on the floor, my husband standing over me, looking scared. Apparently, I’d fainted and he heard the crash and came running. I felt totally disoriented while my husband helped me up then called Hatzalah.

By the time the Hatzalah volunteers arrived I was in a lot of pain, I told them I felt like I’d broken my ribs. They empathized with me and ordered an EKG to the house to make sure everything was okay. They also explained that the cocktail of medication I’d been taking was very strong and advised I switch to a different antibiotic. They EKG came out clear, and at last I went back to bed.

The next morning I woke up in absolute agony. I called my doctor again and explained that I really wasn’t feeling well.

“I’m in so much pain, I can barely move.” I whispered over the phone. “I really feel like my ribs are broken.”

“It’s completely normal to feel that way when you have both COVID and pneumonia,” the doctor said confidently.

Despite his assurances, a voice inside me was screaming that something was really wrong. Hatzalah members brought over an oxygen tank but even with that, my saturation numbers were low. I called a friend who’s a nurse practitioner and she urged me to get an X-ray as soon as possible.

We arranged for an X-ray to be done at home, but it was a long wait, and by the time we got the results, it was Erev Pesach, just hours before the Seder.

The results came back completely clear. My NP friend got the results directly and she called to tell me everything was fine. It was confusing for both of us; being that I was having so much trouble breathing, it seemed strange that my lungs looked so good. We were expecting to see signs of pneumonia on the X-ray at the very least. But there was no time for pondering the inexplicable as Pesach was hours away.

Throughout the first Seder I was in terrible pain and struggling to breathe. My extended family sent over huge amounts of food, but I couldn’t eat or do much of anything at all — it was impossible to find a comfortable position, I couldn’t even get in and out of bed, simply breathing took so much work.

At 12 a.m. on the night of the second Seder we heard an urgent knock at the door. My wonderful friend who’d helped me arrange the X-ray was standing there. I took one look at her face and knew something was very wrong.