'I Cannot Get Air': When NJ Woman Begged For Coronavirus Test

UNION COUNTY, NJ — It was a Saturday afternoon in March — the third day of spring — and a 53-year-old woman named Alisa emailed a desperate plea to Patch saying she could barely breathe and had tried and failed for a week to get a coronavirus test, even after waiting seven hours in a hospital Emergency Room. She didn't know where to turn, she said.

"I don't know what else to do so I'm contacting you," she wrote. "I'm afraid I'm going to die!!! I'm upset and lost. The medical system has failed me over and over when I pleaded with all of them for help ... Last night as I lay in bed trying to relax and sleep I couldn't breathe. My whole body was shaking."

She added, "Every breath I felt like would be my last. I cannot get air! It's like I'm drowning! I need oxygen or something. I don't know who to call or what to do? I need help but the places that are supposed to help me won't help. I'm new to Garwood."

Alisa had read a news story the previous day on Patch about a Westfield father, 38, who had argued for four days to get a coronavirus test. He felt sick and had an immunocompromised son. Ultimately, the man tested positive. READ MORE: Westfield Dad With Coronavirus: I 'Argued' To Get Tested

At that time in early spring, with so little information about the virus, hearing individual stories about people's symptoms and challenges was among the best ways to learn about it.

In the March 20, 2020 news story that Alisa had read, the Westfield father recounted: "I asked to have a mask during my [doctor] visit. The receptionist said that wasn't necessary."

Westfield Mayor Shelley Brindle had also posted about the dad's case on Facebook on March 19, saying it was important to share individual stories so people recognized the symptoms. Only 890 people had tested positive for the virus in New Jersey at the time, according to Brindle's daily update that night.

'Please tell my story so I can get help, and others like me can too.'

Things have obviously changed in New Jersey since March and April 2020: each county now has a free testing center, some with 15-minute tests. And former Gov. Chris Christie and other top officials were hospitalized in fall after testing positive, rather than being told to go home as people were in spring. The fact that testing is more readily available means that not only can people get help more quickly, but they won't keep spreading the virus if isolated.

Yet, between 300 and 1,000 Americans per day are dying of the virus (including 95 just yesterday in Texas). In total, 214,446 have passed away in the US as of this week.

When Alisa (who had asked for her name to be changed in the original story) emailed Patch on March 21, tests were hard to come by everywhere in the state, even in hospitals.

"Do I call the police? The mayor? Who the heck can help me?" she wrote to Patch on that Saturday afternoon. "...Not everyone has the same symptoms, as your article stated with the 38 yr old Westfield man. Please tell my story so I can get help and others like me can too."

Fowarding the letter to her mayor

Alisa explained that she'd become ill while on a road trip to Florida, even though she was taking precautions. When she arrived back in New Jersey in mid-March, she went to local doctors, then to the hospital. "March 16 I was so sick I went to the tent set up at Summit Med group," she wrote. "DENIED THE TEST AGAIN! ... They sent me to Overlook Hosp ER on Monday night. I sat there for seven hours in hell with a mask on and getting into the ER was like trying to break into Fort Knox!"

Alisa, who has asthma and fibromyalgia, said, "I got a chest xray, flu test, strep test and bloodwork. I pleaded for the covid-19 test but still the answer was no. [I] have been getting worse."

At the time, patients who had trouble breathing were sometimes told by doctors to stay out of packed emergency rooms until they were absolutely desperate (as in this story we told about a mom in Hoboken in early April 2020: READ MORE: Hoboken Mom/Reality Star Tells Of Scary Coronavirus Fight At Home).

On that Saturday afternoon when Alisa wrote her long letter to Patch, we forwarded it to Mayor Sara Todisco of Garwood, as mayors throughout New Jersey had started sending out nightly updates with information from their health departments, and seemed to be at the epicenter of the health response in each area.

The mayor responded at 6:39 p.m. that Saturday: "Thank you. I am working with my Police Chief now to get her help."

Alisa emailed back that night at 8:53 p.m., "Thank you sooo much! Mayor Sarah called me and we spoke for a bit. She also contacted the chief of police in Garwood and told him about my problem in case I needed medical assistance. She told me about CityMD in Clark also and I am going to go there tomorrow ... That's all I really wanted so that I know what type of correct medical measures need to be taken!"

In the end, Alisa tested negative. And gradually, she started feeling better. She also had to get tested on two subsequent occasions.

She says now, six months later, that doctors said she had an "extremely bad case of asthmatic bronchitis in both lungs that lasted a long time."

Patch checked in with her last week to see how she's feeling and what she thinks about how the virus was handled in spring.

More tests, few masks

Alisa said she's feeling better, and has since sewn more than 5,000 masks with her mom to help essential workers who didn't have them early on.

"I had four COVID tests in total including the first one I had back when you wrote the article," she said. "Two of the tests were medically required [this summer] because I had to have two surgeries ... Ironically the last three COVID tests I received I did not request. Two were necessary and one was ordered by the doc!"

All were negative, as well as an antibody test she had in late September.

"Being in New Jersey during the COVID pandemic from the start was stressful," Alisa said. "Hospitalization was not an option, everyone was in a panic.... medical staff and regular Americans. Then I got laid off in a mass layoff. Then I was faced with unexpected surgeries while I was job hunting."

She also saw the good.

"I would meet essential workers [in stores] who had no masks because there were none to be found in the beginning of COVID," she said. "They took tee shirt sleeves and cut them off the shirts and pulled them over their faces. So I told them I would bring them masks."

In New Jersey in spring, fatalities included scores of doctors (including father and daughter physicians), police officers, and other first responders.

Alisa and her mom made the masks as part of a project with the American Crafters Guild.

She said, "As she was making masks double time I was making ear extenders like crazy. We would meet on the Garden State Parkway halfway between Bergen County where my family and I are from and Union County where I live now."

She said, "The people were so surprised that I kept my word! Many offered to pay for them. I said, 'No they are free and god bless you, thank you and please stay healthy. '"

At the peak of the pandemic in New Jersey on April 30, 460 people passed away from coronavirus in 24 hours — or one every three minutes.

As of Tuesday, 14,387 people in New Jersey have died of coronavirus, but new deaths in the Garden State are now in the single digits each day.

"When a person, town, county, nation is in the middle of a life-changing event," Alisa said, "that is the time that we all need to support each other! That is the time when we all need to 'have each other's backs.' "

The NJ covid-19 Information Hub is https://covid19.nj.gov/, or call 800-222-1222 or 211.

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