Gig Harbor woman sick with COVID-19 begs people ‘not to brush it off like I did’
Nothing about this has been easy, Carrianne Ekberg says.
Certainly not the illness, COVID-19. The 37-year-old has been battling it for weeks, cordoned off in her Gig Harbor home while trying to recover.
Ekberg bluntly describes COVID-19 as “relentless” and “debilitating.” Since first displaying symptoms on March 17, Ekberg says, there have been days over the last three weeks when she felt like she was improving — only for the fever and respiratory distress to come back stronger.
“I’ve never had anything worse. Let’s just say that,” Ekberg says. “For anybody out there who thinks this is still like the flu … tell them they’re wrong.”
In talking to Ekberg, it quickly becomes clear that this is her motivation for sharing. The small business owner, wife and mother of two young children felt like her family took steps to protect itself and the community from the coronavirus, but it wasn’t enough.
Now that she’s been sick and has had a taste of what COVID-19 is capable of, Ekberg wants others to know what she knows.
She wants to warn people, and, more than anything, she wants the skeptics to take heed.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through,” Ekberg says. “People need to take it seriously.”
Ekberg suspects she was infected in early March, after visiting a local business where there had recently been a positive COVID-19 case.
It was information Ekberg learned too late, upon leaving, and at first she was unnerved and angry. Her family was already being cautious — or at least whatever cautious looked like four weeks ago — and the run-in momentarily shook her.
At the time, however, Ekberg says “everyone” — including a doctor she consulted — told her there was little reason to worry. The family canceled a trip to the East Coast just to be safe, and she began limiting her trips out and about, but she felt fine and quickly assumed she had emerged unscathed.
For the most part, life went on. Ekberg played with her kids, continued to spend time with her husband and even saw a few friends.
“This was before it was really bad here in Washington, and the rest of the country wasn’t taking this virus serious. I thought I was being careful. I thought it would be OK,” Ekberg wrote in a letter to The News Tribune.
“Well, it wasn’t.”
Ten days later, Ekberg first experienced what she recalls as the mildest of symptoms. It started with a few sneezes and a runny nose, but within three days she “was really sick,” she says.
In particular, the pain in her chest and the shortness of breath terrified her.
“I remember lying in bed, just focusing on breathing and making sure I could take a deep, uninhibited breath. And at the same time trying not to panic,” Ekberg says. “There’s nothing they can give you. You just hope that your body is strong enough to fight it.”
By March 20, Ekberg found herself in her car, parked by a dumpster outside an urgent care clinic. A nurse and a med tech walked out in full PPE and administered the COVID-19 test.
Then she drove off, went home and continued to “get worse.” It would take another 11 days for the test to come back positive, Ekberg says.
By then she was expecting the news, but hearing the word “positive” still took a toll.
“I tried to ask as many questions as I could before I completely lost it. I was so scared for my husband and for my two little kids. I was angry with myself for not doing a better job of at-home quarantine from my family,” Ekberg says.
“After we hung up I couldn’t hold back anymore and completely broke down.”
Beyond the illness and the fear, Ekberg says she’s been living with regret.
In retrospect, she says, she could have done more — and wishes she would have.
Ekberg’s kids and husband all have all been sick with mild symptoms, she says, and she assumes she passed the coronavirus on to them. Meanwhile, she knows of at least one friend who came down with “a moderate case” of COVID-19 after being in contact with her, though she’s hopefully recovering.
None of this has been easy, Ekberg reiterates.
Including the guilt.
“It’s very hard knowing that you infected other people. We did our best, but we didn’t do a very good job,” Ekberg says. “People need to understand and know how to recognize the symptoms, and not brush that stuff off like I did.”
“People just need to stay home,” she pleads.
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
