Burning fever, suffocating pain: ‘COVID took me down hard,’ Kentucky nurse says.

Renee Cawood-Mathew, a family nurse practitioner in Northern Kentucky, started feeling under the weather last Wednesday.

By Wednesday night, Cawood-Mathew, 47, said she was burning up with fever and had chest pain and shortness of breath. She slept for two days and continued to feel progressively worse. She was taken to the emergency room Saturday and was admitted into a hospital she declined to identify.

On Sunday, she found out that she was one of the hundreds of Kentuckians whose COVID-19 test was positive.

“I am still on oxygen and while it does help I continue to feel like I am suffocating at times which is when I am up walking just to the restroom,” she said in a Facebook post Monday. “This has me scared and terrified. I was hopeful the virus (when it hit me) would be mild but COVID took me down hard and vicious and I guess had other plans for me.”

Cawood-Mathew told the Herald-Leader Tuesday that she has no idea where she was exposed to coronavirus.

She said she is sharing her story on social media because she wants people to stay home.

“Stay healthy, you don’t want to be where I am right now. It is a terrifying place with lots of uncertainty. I am still amazed at how fast it took me down,” she said.

“My lungs hurt, I breathe in short breathes to prevent the pain and the cold feeling that spreads through my lungs like wildfire, once that starts the inevitable coughing fits come next and then the decline in my oxygen,” said Cawood-Mathew.

“I can’t walk more than three steps without getting so winded that I feel like I may suffocate,” she said.

“Sometimes it is hard to speak in sentences, so I lay very still in bed, get up only as necessary, and pray,” said Cawood-Mathew.

“I am afraid, I lay here alone in quarantine. I so wish I could feel a cool breeze on my face or take a breath of fresh air but that is not a possibility for me right now,” she said.

Cawood-Mathew is married and has two children and three stepchildren.

“I miss my family and my friends. I miss laughing and joking,” she said. “I miss taking advantage of being able to breathe normally. Nurses hung signs on my room with words of encouragement which made me cry. These nurses have worked hard and deserve all the credit they can get.”

She said she would have gladly engaged in social distancing for months to prevent becoming sick and afraid as she is now.

“We are all vulnerable so please do what is asked of you to not only keep yourself safe but also your loved one,” she said.

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 1:22 PM.