Coronavirus Fight: 'The Physical Misery Is Almost Indescribable'

MONTAUK, NY — Laura Euler, who lives in Montauk, said every time she hasn't felt well since February, her daughter, 23, would tease her, saying, "Maybe it's the COVID."

But when she began to feel desperately ill in recent weeks, Euler said she thought, "Maybe it is the COVID."

Euler said when she began experiencing pain during the past month, at first she believed what she was experiencing was a flareup of her fibromyalgia. Then she began experiencing other symptoms such as a fever, which led her to believe she might have the flu. ""I did have a flu shot in September, but who knows? It could have been another strain," she said.

Euler said her first symptoms included an "all-over pain and malaise such as I’d never experienced before. No painkiller I had touched the pain. I couldn’t sleep for three nights because of the pain. Finally I figured out, when the mac and cheese I thought I should eat tasted horrible, that it must be COVID."

Even then, Euler said she didn't want to leave the house, drive, or ask her kids or anyone else to drive her to be tested.

"I thought I’d wait it out at home," she said.

Her son brought Euler a pulse oximeter so she could keep an eye on my oxygen levels, which were fine, she said.

"I didn’t have any trouble breathing, so I thought I’d recover by myself at home. Fortunately, my property has a main and a guest house — I stayed in the guest house to isolate."

Euler said she has no idea where she may have gotten the coronavirus. But as she began to feel worse, one of her best friends and her sister "yelled me into going to the hospital," she said. "I called an ambulance. They gave me a rapid results test in the ER."

Even with the diagnosis, Euler wasn't frightened. "My 76-year-old wheelchair-bound mother beat COVID twice this year," she said. "If I’d been having trouble breathing, I would have been nervous, I guess, but as it was I wasn’t scared."

Once in the hospital, Euler was diagnosed with a "nasty case of pneumonia, which is common with COVID," she said. "I needed all kinds of IV antibiotics and treatment for the pneumonia."

She realized that she should have gone to the hospital from the first, Euler said. "My friend and sister were right to yell at me. My only excuse is that I was really sick and not thinking things through. Plus I’d heard some scary stories about COVID wings."

And, Euler said, she'd read medical experts who reported that without respiratory symptoms, hospitalization was not needed for the coronavirus.

Once in the hospital, Euler began to heal. "The room I had at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital was the nicest hospital room I’ve ever had. It was private, it was large, and best of all, with the door closed it was silent. None of those stressful hospital noises. So I could keep it dark and quiet and got lots of sleep," she said.

And, she added: "All the staff I encountered — doctors, nurses, assistants, everyone — was absolutely fantastic. Nice, kind, smart, helpful. Again, the best group of hospital staff I have ever encountered. Thanks so much to them in such a trying, awful time."

Now home again, Euler is trying to eat and gain strength. "It’s hard to eat with no desire for food and with things tasting off — but I need to eat so I will feel less weak and shaky. Right now, getting up the single step into my house is a huge effort. But my kids are here to help me."

For those who believe the virus isn't real, Euler said: "Start paying attention to science and less attention to conspiracy theories. And everyone, please, get a vaccine as soon as you can."

When asked to describe her experience, Euler said it has been terrible in many ways. "The physical misery is almost indescribable. But it is truly humbling and moving how many friends rendered me real help and there were so many others locally who offered. I feel so lucky to have so many good people around."