Shannon George didn’t even know she had it at first. Kim Silke couldn’t get out of bed for days; her husband, meanwhile, didn’t show any symptoms. Joseph Saromines spent more than three weeks in the hospital.
They all had COVID-19. They just didn’t have it the same way.
For people who’ve gotten infected, the novel coronavirus has manifested in a wide range of experiences. Some say it's felt like little more than a head cold while others have complications that turn fatal.
Stories from Kitsap County underscore how the highly contagious coronavirus can be utterly unpredictable for those who get it.
Since the pandemic started in March, Kitsap County has seen more than 800 confirmed cases, with a disproportionate impact felt by people of color. Each case represents far more than a data point for those who’ve contracted the virus and the people who know them.
In interviews with the Kitsap Sun, community members shared their personal experience with COVID-19 and how it feels to have it or to know someone who does: The anxiety over deciding whether to go to the emergency room if you have trouble breathing; the unease about not knowing where you got infected and the fear about unwittingly spreading it to others; the deep pain of losing a loved one.
Silke, 53, of Port Orchard, came down with the virus after she and her husband visited their daughter and son-in-law’s place in Arizona in mid-April. While three of the four of them tested positive for the virus —Silke, her husband and their son-in-law — her daughter’s test came back negative.
For Silke, the virus came on slowly. She says it felt like coming down with a cold to start. But then a few days in, she began having difficulty breathing and had to go to the emergency room.
Read More: Why don’t we know more about that COVID-19 case? The balance of health privacy laws and public interest
“So I had a little bit of a meltdown and thought for sure I was dying,” said Silke, who was concerned after seeing the reports about people hooked up on ventilators. “That was the nerve-wracking part of realizing that I had the same virus and it could turn on me very quickly.”
Doctors ended up giving her an inhaler, which helped her breathing. Even still, she felt extremely fatigued. For a day or two, she lost her sense of taste and smell. “I just slept. There were a couple days I never got out of bed,” she said.
At the same time, Silke’s husband, who also tested positive for the virus, didn’t show any symptoms. “This whole time my husband has it and is completely normal,” she said. “Not even a clue that he would have it.”
'I would have never known'
Danny Fulton woke up in mid-July with a scratchy throat and a small cough. At first, he thought it was just allergies.
After Fulton's work sent him home, the 32-year-old Bremerton resident got tested and the next day the results came back positive.
“Initially it was fine and nothing was going on and then bam, a wave of fever came on,” said Fulton, explaining how each day around noon “another wave” of fever would hit and cease to relent. “I think the lowest it ever got down to was maybe 100 degrees.”
When his fever hit 103 degrees, Fulton went into the emergency room, where he was hooked up to an IV for fluids and given antibiotics for pneumonia.
Fulton was back to full strength two weeks later. He’s just thankful that he’s in pretty good physical health.
Shannon George doesn’t know how she picked up the coronavirus. Before she was tested in late July, George said her symptoms were so minor she didn’t even think she had COVID-19.
“I kind of felt like I had really bad allergies almost to the point where it felt like I could have sinus infection coming on,” said George, 40, of Suquamish. “I would have never known that that's what this is.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about half of transmission occurs before people experience symptoms. About 40% of people who are infected may not even show symptoms, according to the CDC’s best estimates. Others are sick for weeks on end and still feel the impact months later.
George says she started feeling more symptoms before her test even came back positive. Some days, she felt crummy, with a fever that had spiked and rescinded. Other days, she felt slightly better with a slight headache and sinus congestion. Eventually, she lost her sense of taste and smell. But, she said, it was “nothing severe enough to make me worry about it.”
George's case is why health officials have emphasized the need for people to contact their doctor and get tested for COVID-19, even if they only have minor symptoms, and to stay home when sick.
Kitsap health officials have also urged people to follow the state’s safety guidelines, like practicing social distancing, avoiding gatherings of more than five people, and wearing a face mask in public to protect others. Those are measures that health experts say are the country’s main defense against the virus until there is a vaccine.
Though George says she wasn’t too concerned about her own health, she has worried about who she may have spread the virus to. “It terrifies me to know that I could have put my loved ones at risk,” she said. Luckily, her family and friends haven’t tested positive.
While she no longer has the virus, George says she’s continuing to be cautious about following the state’s health guidelines: She tries to stay mostly at home. She always wears a mask. And she stays away from larger gatherings.
“I’m being more mindful. I’m being more careful,” she said. “There’s no way I’m going to put anybody else at risk. That was my biggest fear.”
'This is taking lives and this is painful'
While many have felt only minor symptoms of COVID-19, some people have experienced more severe cases.
In Kitsap County, 59 people have been hospitalized from COVID-19 to date, including four people last week. For many, a hospital stay has been anything but easy.
Laurel Saromines said that was the case for her 81-year-old husband, Joseph, who spent 24 days at an Oregon hospital. (Because the couple recently moved to Bremerton from West Seattle, Joseph’s case is not included in Kitsap’s count.)
Laurel, 75, said the couple tested positive in mid-March after going down to Oregon for ski vacation. Joseph had been fighting what doctors thought was a bad cold for weeks, which had resulted in pneumonia. It turns out, Laurel and Joseph both had COVID-19.
In the hospital, Joseph had been transferred to the intensive care unit and put on a ventilator for five days, Laurel said. Even afterward, he relied on oxygen and needed a feeding tube. “I was very concerned. But I didn’t spend my time worrying about it. I spent a lot of time praying,” Laurel said.
Related: From anti-maskers to large gatherings: Kitsap community navigates divides over state's COVID-19 rules
Five months later, Joseph is getting better but he still isn’t back to full health, Laurel said. He has trouble swallowing and can only eat small amounts of soft foods. He still gets worn out easily and has some breathing issues. He’s been back to the hospital twice for extreme dehydration and a blood transfusion.
While Joseph was more vulnerable to the illness because of his old age, along with having diabetes, Laurel says her husband was in very good shape from serving as a ski instructor, playing tennis and golfing. “That was really probably what allowed him to fight this,” she said.
Other families have not been so fortunate. To date, COVID-19 has killed at least seven people in Kitsap County, making up a sliver of the more than 1,755 Washingtonians lost during the pandemic.
That included 80-year-old Joanne “Granni Jo” Hunter, a longtime Bremerton resident known for her caring soul, and 55-year-old Mariano Matias Mendoza, remembered as a leader in Bremerton’s Guatemalan community.
Sarah Milne, 29, of Bremerton, also knows what it’s like to lose someone to COVID-19. Her great aunt Rosita Fothergill died from the virus last month at a Seattle hospital. She was 82.
Milne, who has not tested positive for COVID-19, says her great aunt spent several weeks on a ventilator after she couldn’t breathe, walk or even stand because of the virus. The ordeal was even more difficult because loved ones couldn’t be alongside the family’s matriarch in the hospital. The tight-knit family is still unable to gather together to mourn Rosita’s death.
A look into area deaths: Kitsap County sees rising COVID-19 deaths
“No one could say bye to her,” Milne said. “It pains my heart because we couldn’t do anything for her for four weeks. We would go see her. We couldn't embrace her...We just wanted her to know that we loved her.”
Remembering her great aunt’s infectious laugh, rigorous work ethic and kind personality, Milne said her family has “paid the ultimate price" during a pandemic where some people refuse to wear a mask. “Wouldn't you do anything you could to protect the people you love? To protect your own? And to protect everyone?” she asked.
Milne says she hopes people will take the efforts necessary to help curb the virus’ spread, especially as people continue to die.
“You might not know anybody that is ill,” she said. “You might not know anybody that has passed. But this is taking lives and this is painful.”
Austen Macalus is the Kitsap Sun's social services reporter — covering health care, homelessness and how programs are serving those in need. He can be reached at austen.macalus@kitsapsun.com or 360-536-6423.
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