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The Westfield man came down with what felt like the flu on March 10: Fatigue, chills, and some aches, he said in a Facebook post shared by Westfield Mayor Shelley Brindle. The next day was worse: Dizziness, more chills, slight cough and runny nose.
He went to the doctor wearing a mask, and was told by the receptionist that wasn't necessary.
"My doctor gave me a flu test, which, obviously, was negative," he wrote.
"She thought that I had some run-of-the-mill virus."
Then, the next wave of symptoms hit. This time, diarrhea, but no stomach aches -- which the patient says he took as a ray of hope that maybe he didn't have the feared COVID-19.
His doctor last Friday told him to go to CityMD in Clark to get tested, however, the on-call doctor there said he wouldn't administer a test, the Facebook post reads.
That's because his lung sounded fine, he was under 60 and hadn't been exposed to anyone who had tested positive, he wrote.
"I argued that I have a child with a suppressed immune system," the post reads. "That made no difference."
The patient contacted Mayor Brindle, who got back immediately -- but even she couldn't arrange for a test, the post says.
He managed to get a test Monday, and the results came back positive.
"In other words, I could easily have fallen through the giant cracks in our pathetic excuse for a testing regime," the post says.
"And, at that point, I would never have been able to alert my family, friends, students, and coworkers about my positive test."
His symptoms have stabilized into a "predictable daily pattern," the patient said.
It starts with a fever in the morning, fatigues and problems regulating body temperature, then a cough. Then a fever spike in the evenings. He also has diarrhea, but his breathing is fine, he said.
"The takeaway? I am 38-years-old and in otherwise fine health," he wrote.
"I had never missed a day of work from sickness before last Thursday. I have no clue how I got Covid-19. But it comes with a variety of symptoms, even though we’re only focusing on the pulmonary ones. So be alert."
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