Heather Fuller is a rare coastal Alabama resident who has been able to get tested for novel coronavirus. It wasn’t an easy journey.

The 39-year-old resident of the Fort Morgan peninsula next to Gulf Shores is now waiting on the results from a test she received at Springhill Medical Center in Mobile to come back. It could be another two days.

“I’m just kind of riding it out,” Fuller said Wednesday. She is self-quarantining with her husband inside their Fort Morgan home.

Fuller’s journey toward testing outside the Mobile hospital began late last month when she and her husband, Wayne, were in Baltimore for an unrelated medical appointment at John Hopkins Hospital.

The couple flew returned to Alabama by flying into the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans on March 4, and returned home. On March 9, Fuller drove to Tuscumbia where she was going to help a friend prepare for a wedding.

“My best friend gets the flu last Tuesday and they tested her for the flu and she says she was fine, a mild case,” said Fuller about what happened while she was in North Alabama. “I drive (back to Fort Morgan) on Sunday and I wasn’t feeling good. Scratchy throat. Queasy. I was up Monday morning (at home) and I was so sick.”

Fuller said she called the state’s coronavirus hotline and provided the details about her symptoms. She then provided the operator her zip code to learn where she needed to go for possible testing.

“She told me that your closest testing facility is in Jefferson County,” said Fuller. “I thought, ‘you want me to drive four hours? No thanks.’”

Before Monday, there was nowhere to get tested for COVID-19 in South Alabama. On Monday, Mostellar Medical Center in Bayou La Batre and Spring Hill Medical Center became the first two sites where tents were set up and patients began to be screened.

Fuller, who doesn’t have a spleen and is considered “immune compromise,” set out to find out whether she has contracted coronavirus. She called an urgent care facility in Gulf Shores, where she was told she could get a flu test but little else.

“I told them that I had flu exposure last week, and it was 99.4 degrees, a low-grade temp,” said Fuller. “She said that she could give me a flu test and I was thinking that I needed treatment of some sort. She hung up and I thought, ‘What do I need to do?’ My family and friends are concerned telling me that, ‘with your condition, you need to go somewhere.’”

Fuller said she called Southern Rapid Care in Orange Beach – another urgent care facility – last Monday afternoon. She arrived around 7 p.m., filled out the required paperwork and saw a doctor. She tested “flu negative.”

“I thought, ‘I’m flu negative and I’m still sick and no one is doing anything,” she said.

Fuller said a friend called her and instructed her to go to an emergency room right away. She and her husband drove to South Baldwin Regional Medical Center where her husband walked inside to inquire what they should do. He returned to the car and told her, “They are pretty much saying we can’t test anyone.”

On Tuesday morning, Fuller said she woke up feeling even worse than on Monday.

“I got the chills at this point and I’m bundled up and have my coat on,” she said.

The couple then drove to Springhill Medical Center where she saw about “30 people” in a similar condition – bundled up, coughing and sick.

“They took me to the back inside the tent,” said Fuller, who was with a group of about 10 other people. “I was the only person they tested for it. I said that I had been traveling to Baltimore, New Orleans and North Alabama. I got home Sunday and was sick and tested negative for the flu and I’m Asplenic. So they tested me and did the swab and told me, ‘this will not come back for four days.’”

Fuller asked one of the nurses about what she should do. The hospital, she was told, doesn’t have enough capacity to hold people who have been tested for COVID-19.

Fuller said she is worried about being Asplenic and going into respiratory distress – a common symptom for those with COVID-19 – while not being near a hospital where she can receive treatment. Fort Morgan is over an hour’s drive to Springhill.

“(The nurse) said to ride it out at home,” said Fuller. “If it was for me being Apslenic, I wouldn’t have been tested. The last time I had pneumonia, I felt fine. And then I went from fine to septic in the hospital in under 48 hours, without a cough.”

She said she was impressed with how Springhill was handling the pandemic with limited resources for testing and assisting those who need help.

As of Wednesday Alabama had 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Mobile County remained without a confirmed case.

“They are just overwhelmed,” said Fuller, referring to Springhill.

Fuller has been a rarity in coastal Alabama where a lack of testing materials became the focal point of tense and dueling news conferences on Wednesday.

Dr. Bernard Eichold II, the health officer for Mobile County, ordered a one-week shutdown of bars and restaurants effective at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. His statements drew the ire of Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, who said he wasn’t pleased with the idea of shuttering restaurants and pointed at the Health Department as the main agency in charge of procuring testing supplies.

Earlier on Wednesday, Rendi Murphree – an epidemiologist with the Mobile County Health Department – said testing materials are in short supply and are being diverted by federal authorities to areas that need them the most. She also said it could be April before the Health Department receives them.

Fuller, who is a small business owner and operates a day spa, said on her drive home Tuesday from Mobile, the couple passed by go-kart tracks and mini-golf attractions in Gulf Shores that were filled with people. The city, at the time, had yet to declare a local state of emergency ordering against gatherings of groups of 10 people or more. The beaches have been left open, and have become Ground Zero for criticism against government officials from people concerned about the spread of coronavirus.

Gulf Shores, as of Thursday morning, announced it was closing its public beaches at 7 a.m. Friday.

“I sympathize with small business owners but when we drove into Gulf Shores (Tuesday), those places were completely packed,” said Fuller. “And it doesn’t make any sense to me. We just went to Walgreens, (got some medicine) and went home.”

Condition update: Heather Fuller, on Tuesday, March 24, 2020, emailed AL.com to provide an update on her condition. She tested negative for coronavirus. “Hallelujah! What a relief,” she said.