ETSU student shares experience recovering from COVID-19

What began as sore sinuses led to a fever and a wet cough, but when ETSU junior and theater major Hunter Thomas tested positive for COVID-19, he said he was not “crazy surprised” because all the dots connected.

During ETSU’s spring break, Thomas visited his home in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, where he saw his mom and dad, as well as his sister who had just returned from a mission trip in Panama. After three days, he returned to his apartment in Johnson City, Tennessee, with the intention of staying until the end of the semester.

Thomas found out from his mom on March 27 that his dad felt sick and had a fever. The fever, which lasted two to three days, prompted a call to a doctor who told his dad he should get tested for COVID-19. On March 29, Thomas’s dad told him he was getting tested.

“I was pretty okay throughout the day,” Thomas said about processing the news. “I just try not to dwell on things, and then that night I had this dream where he died, and it was this whole thing where I was at his funeral, and it was like – not to get into logistics – but it was a thing where I was at his funeral, and I said goodbye to him at his funeral, and I guess his spirit showed up and I talked to him.”

On March 31, Thomas’s dad called to say he tested positive.

“We’re pretty sure that my sister had it and was just asymptomatic, and that she brought it back from Panama,” Thomas said. “Because I know when she – from what we heard – when she went through the airport, there was pretty much no security.”

His mom told him to be cautious since he was exposed to his dad over spring break. On April 1, which Thomas described as “the cruelest April Fool’s Day prank,” he developed sore sinuses. Thomas was not initially concerned since he usually has sinus issues this time of year, but the next day he woke up with a fever.

His fever lasted about a day and a half. On April 2, he called the doctor to say he was “pretty positive” it was just a sinus infection because he did not have a dry cough or other common COVID-19 symptoms. The doctor told him to call a coronavirus hotline since he had a fever.

He called and went through a question and answer process, but they told him he did not show enough symptoms to come in. Thomas said he did not think to tell them his dad had it because it never came up in their question process. He decided to wait it out, but over the following days he experienced more intense symptoms.

“When I first got hit, it was like bad, bad of like fevers, chills, body aches,” Thomas said. “I remember getting in the shower and the shower not even being hot enough to – it just felt like cold water on me because of how hot my body was.”

Thomas said it was hard to do schoolwork on those days because he had the mentality of “I am going to live in bed.”

“The hardest part of it was pulling out of that,” Thomas said. “And being like, you’re well enough to go watch this video. You’re well enough to go do this discussion post, and so like that has been the hardest part for me of recognizing the – you are fine enough to push your body back to where it is getting back to.”

By April 5, Thomas’s fever subsided, but he was left with a wet cough and sore sinuses. He called a different doctor’s office, and they set up a virtual appointment through video call. This time he mentioned he had been around his dad but that the hotline did not ask him that the first time. They told him he needed to be tested.

The next day, he called and made an appointment to be tested on April 7 at the Washington County Health Department. At that point, Thomas said his sinuses were still hurting but slowly starting to improve.

“It was kind of scary actually,” Thomas said. “You drive up, and you wait. There was like one car in front of me, but when you drive up it’s a guy in a lab coat, and then it was some woman that was helping, and then they had a soldier there with them, so it was [a] very real, pandemic, post-apocalyptic thing of just like, there’s military here. They tested me, and they just stuck the thing up your nose on both sides, and then I left and that was pretty much it. I was expecting to be there like 20 minutes. It was like bam and done.”

On April 8, during a Zoom meeting for his directing class, Thomas got the call that he tested positive. After being told he may have to wait three to six days for results, he said he was surprised by the quick turnaround.

They told him to contact anyone who was exposed to him within two days before his symptoms showed up and tell them to quarantine themselves for 14 days from when his symptoms emerged. The only people were his boyfriend George and George’s roommate. They told Thomas to stay quarantined until seven days after his symptoms showed up or three days after his symptoms went away. They did not suggest or offer medication.

“What was funny enough is I was – on [April] 8 is when I got that call – and then I was almost better at that point,” Thomas said. “Like my sinuses had completely cleared up. The only thing I was waiting on is I just had a lingering cough that wasn’t really that bad. I was just coughing stuff up that I think had been falling down.”

The Health Department continued to call over the following days to check in with him about his symptoms. On April 10, he told them he only had a minor cough left, they told him he should be “good to go” the following day.

“I was like, that’s kind of crazy because I think you read the news, and you’re hearing about all these stories of people going to the hospital or having these breathing issues,” Thomas said. “And then I got it, and it was just kind of a really bad cold essentially for me, and it was kind of over before I knew it.”

Although Thomas’s recovery was quick, he said his dad’s recovery took longer. His dad got better for a few days and was cleared by a doctor, but after two or three days he got hit with a worse cough.

“He called his doctor back, and he was like, ‘Okay, so what has happened is you’ve entered phase two of COVID[-19],’ and this was the first time I heard there was phase two,” Thomas said.

Along with recovery length, Thomas said they also had differences in symptoms.

“So, I only had a fever for maybe like a day and a half, and he had a fever for anywhere between like two to four days,” Thomas said. “I had like a bit of a cough, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as how he sounded on the phone so – he’s turning 62 this year – so he took it a lot harder just in general. … I mean like the fact that he got hit by phase two was a major thing for him as well, but I mean he just in general got hit a lot harder than I did.”

Thomas said both he and his dad have the underlying condition of hypothyroidism, which he was concerned about when they were both diagnosed. Thomas specifically has Hashimoto’s disease, but he has been on medicine that helps his thyroid work again.

“So, there was a part of me too that was like – I don’t know,” he said. “I was scared for my dad, but when I first got sick, I was still pretty convinced it was a sinus infection. But I was just like, if this was corona then it would hit me harder, which was weird because it barely hit me at all, which I think … just shows how well my medication works, which just replaces those hormones in there.”

Thomas said the biggest thing he has taken away from his experience is that he wishes more people would take the pandemic seriously.

“Like even though it didn’t hit me that hard, it was a scary moment for my dad,” Thomas said.  “And seeing – I mean like a close friend I went to high school with, her grandfather died from this, and I’m seeing more and more people who are. I have people kind of on the outskirts of my social circle that it’s slowly coming in of how people are being affected by this.”

Thomas said he sees a lack of concern, especially on social media, where he wishes more people would spread the message to stay inside.

“That’s been like just the overlying thing, but I don’t know if that’s as much my classmates and more just like the world in general,” Thomas said. “I wish we could stay inside more at this point.”