For Sam Ivy, it didn’t start with a nagging cough or a fever.
It started with a bad glass of sweet tea.
Ivy is the director of the Baptist Student Union at the Mississippi University for Women. He is also someone who has contracted and recovered from COVID-19 coronavirus. As evidence of the latter, he spent most of Tuesday doing yard work at the home of 94-year-old Daisy Poros, whose house is next door to the BSU.
“I feel fine now,” Ivy said.
Ivy most likely contracted the disease during a week-long mission trip to New York City from March 7-13. He was accompanying a group of 24 BSU members from The W and East Mississippi Community College.
“We were out everywhere, probably every borough in the city,” Ivy said. “When we got there (COVID-19) wasn’t considered a big ordeal, but that had changed by the time we left.”
The city reported its first COVID-19 death the day after Ivy returned home. As of this morning, the death toll in the state of New York is almost 11,000.
While the most common reported symptoms of the virus are coughing, fever and muscle aches, Ivy said those symptoms weren’t the first to appear for him.
“The first thing that happened was that I lost my sense of smell and taste,” he said. “That Sunday after I got back from New York, I was taking a drink of some sweet tea. It tasted like sugar water. I remember thinking, ‘This is the worst sweet tea I’ve ever tasted in my life.'”
Ivy assumed the loss of taste and smell might be pollen-related or, perhaps a nasal infection. He treated it with over-the-counter sinus medicine and never gave it a thought.
It wasn’t until four days later, on March 19, that he realized there was something more serious going on.
“I was working at home that day and began to feel a little light-headed and dizzy,” he said. “Then I started getting chills, so I took my temperature. It was 100.4. That’s when I called the clinic.”
After talking to someone at a local clinic, Ivy went in for a visit the next day where he was tested for strep throat and flu, both of which came back negative. He still hadn’t developed a cough, though, but the clinic did test him for COVID-19, then sent him home with orders to self-quarantine.
The results came back on March 24, confirming that Ivy had COVID-19.
Upon confirmation, Ivy’s thoughts turned to his wife Abby, whom he married in December.
“By the time I knew I had it, we had been at home together for nine or 10 days,” he said. “Our apartment here in Starkville is only 480 square feet, so I knew she had been exposed.”
Abby never showed symptoms, though. Now, more than four weeks after Sam’s return from New York — well beyond the 14-day period when virus carriers are believed to be most contagious — she still hasn’t shown any symptoms.
Symptoms vary
Ivy said he didn’t show other signs common to the virus — coughing, shortness of breath, tightness in his chest — until the day he got his test results back.
Dr. Jim Woodard of Allegro Clinic in Columbus said Ivy’s story emphasizes that there is no single symptom that indicates the virus.
Symptoms can vary and can present at different times, Woodard said.
Woodard said that neither of the two patients who tested positive at his clinic mentioned a loss of taste or smell. “But I’ve been reading a lot about what’s been happening in other places. I’ve read about the loss of sense and smell. The things we look for in the virus are the respiratory symptoms — fever, cough, shortness of breath, but from what I’ve read, other symptoms are sometimes present and the symptoms don’t necessarily present at the same time with each patient.”
Woodard said the uncertainty of how the virus presents itself should be a sign for people to be more active in seeking medical care.
“I’d say it’s better to over-react than under-react,” he said.
Ivy said he and his wife extended their self-quarantine for five days past the health department’s recommendation.
“We wanted to be extra cautious,” he said.
He said none of the students who traveled with him appear to have contracted the virus.
“There was one student who did test, but the results came back negative,” he said.
Ivy counts that as a blessing.
“I’m 24 and in good health,” he said. “But since March 15, I was carrying the virus unbeknownst to me. Working in ministry, it’s not hard for me to come across people who are at a higher risk. I’m thankful that I was cautious and had information and took it seriously. I realize how dangerous it could have been.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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