Image Credit: Contributed / Dana Elliott

By Jill Sperling

COVID-19

Kamloops COVID-19 patient begins to recover following hospitalization

Mar 30, 2020 | 4:39 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops resident Keith Elliot is back at home after being hospitalized with COVID-19.

“I’m certainly on the mend. I’m not 100 per cent, but I’m much better.”

It’s been 19 days since Keith came down with a sore throat. He had neither travelled nor been around anyone he believed to be sick.

Several days later Keith was taken to the Emergency Room where a doctor told him he likely had the flu but decided to test for COVID-19 just in case.

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“It was taxing, you know, like after the first few days. I’ve certainly never been this sick for this long,” Keith said. “I thought it was just the flu and then after three or four days I thought, ‘man, it’s enough.’

“Then it kept going and going and I was very confused. I don’t know if that was from the fever or what, but there was quite a bit of confusion, and very weird dreams, like dreams on a loop. It was a strange time for me for sure.”

Keith’s COVID-19 test came back positive on March 20. At that point his wife Dana was also tested for the virus and also tested positive.

“I had been experiencing some shortness of breath and chest tightness prior to my positive test coming back,” Dana said, “but we just kept thinking that I was under stress, anxiety because of everything that was going on with Keith, so I wasn’t really paying attention to my own symptoms as much.”

Both Keith and Dana have been quarantined at home, but last Tuesday (March 24) Keith’s condition took a turn for the worse and he was admitted to hospital.

“My lungs started to, I guess simply explained, sort of started to scar up a bit, so my oxygen was very low,” Keith said. “I was very tired all the time so they admitted me to the hospital and put me in the ICU. I was on oxygen for a number of days.”

It was yet another stressor for the Elliott family.

“It was a pretty horrible feeling walking out of the hospital without him, and I may have broken down in my vehicle,” Dana said.

Keith’s condition began to improve while in hospital and this past Saturday (March 28) he was able to go home.

“I do have the heavy chest and that and I’m certainly tired,” he said. “I’m not 100 per cent by any stretch, but I think the symptoms are certainly starting to go.”

The Elliotts are hoping everyone will take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously and choose to isolate in order to stop the spread.