A Portland family shares their experience

Christina Kierys and her family in Portland contracted mild cases of coronavirus starting on March 20. We talked to her about what her family's experience was with the virus.

Q: What are some of the symptoms you had?

A: It started with a tickle in my chest and kind of like a dry cough. Then, the next morning it just came on really strong. I woke up with fever chills sore throat and just noticed a change in my breathing. It was really scary everyday not knowing what the next day would bring and how long it would last. Now, looking back, those were some of the early symptoms we had; that feeling in your chest. It was like a tickle and that dry cough. I had a sore throat too. The interesting thing with the fever is it kind of stayed between that 100/101. It wasn’t a high fever like you normally have with the flu. It was milder and even with Tylenol it really stayed within that range. I did have some chest congestion where you feel it moving in your chest, which made the cough a lot worse. I did also have some tiredness and fatigue.



Q: A lot of people talk about how they start to feel better and then suddenly get so much worse again. Did that happen to you or anyone in your family?

A: It did and I think it happened to all of us. I started feeling better Sunday night after being sick since Friday and wanted to do laundry and clean because at that point my son wasn’t sick yet and walking around the house I started to feel bad again and then Monday afternoon I thought I was through the worst of it and I started to feel bad again. It was very up and down.



Q: How long did it last for?

A: I first noticed symptoms on a Thursday. For about two days we had the strong fever, chills and sore throat. The breathing issues were strong that Saturday and Sunday. By Monday I was starting to feel better, still a little up and down. But, the cough lingered for a good week longer. We also did lose our taste and smell for almost a week.



Q: How did you alleviate symptoms?

A: [The] humidifier was a huge help for us. We used the expectorant medications like Mucinex; some cough drops. I did do some saltwater gargles as well, anything I could think of that would help alleviate the symptoms. [We] drank a ton of tea with honey and lemon and then I used a warm compress on my chest as well, which did help alleviate some of the chest pressure I had.



Q: Can you trace back to where you contracted the virus?

A: My husband does emergency restorations and he had a job in the Greenwich area the week before and he was in someone's house there. He was down there Thursday and he started feeling sick Wednesday, so more than likely, maybe that's where it came from. It could have been if he got gas in that area while he was down there. But, that's where we're thinking it could have come from.





Q: Your husband was the first in your family to contract the virus, but you were the one who was able to get tested. What was that like?

A: He called the urgent care center and they sent him a prescription to get tested. They sent it to Hartford Hospital and when he heard from Hartford, it was a lot of back and forth. It dragged out for about a week. Finally he asked, "Am I going to be able to get tested?" They said, "No, we're out of kits right now." When I called, about two days after him, he was already going through the runaround with them. I asked if I should bother getting tested and they said they would send my script to Yale because they're still doing testing down there. So, that's how I was able to get tested. I started to feel sick the morning of March 20 and I called right when they opened. They sent the script right away, but even though I called right away it still took 6 days for me to actually be able to get tested and then it took 8 more days for the results to come back, which, for me, was very scary.

Q: What can you tell people after having gone through this?

A: You’re following the statistics everyday looking at how many cases there are in my area and people have no idea that the data is two weeks behind. That was part of the reason I reached out to people was to bring awareness that the data is a little bit behind and so it’s right in our backyard and we don’t even know that it’s here. [I just want to] get the people to take the social distancing more seriously because it is here. But, at the same time, I didn’t want people to be scared. I wanted people to know it is beatable and here’s what we did.