COVID UGGH!

Well, I’m in the hospital! I started with a sore throat on Wednesday and it got worse. I developed a headache, body aches and this is kinda gross but excessive post nasal drip so I contacted my PCP but her office didn’t have any appointment availability. The nurse scheduled me with Baystate Urgent Care. David and I arrived at the clinic on time but we still had to wait an hour to be seen. After waiting so long it was nice to see that the staff was great. They did a rapid strep test but it was negative and the PA said that my throat looked ok but she wanted to do a Covid test just in case. Low and behold she called me a 2:30pm on Friday to inform me that my Covid test was positive. I was an absolute mess. I called David in tears. I’m so scared for my heart. I called the heart transplant team and left a message as well as sending a message through the patient portal but I was so anxious and worried that I called Dr. Ganim, the surgeon that I formerly worked for. We have continued to keep in touch. She had referred me to Infectious Disease for Remdesivir treatment in the past. I was hoping that she could help me with this again. I called her cell phone and a nurse in the OR answered. She had the nurse put me on speaker and I explained my situation to her. She said she would get a call out to Dr. Paez in Infectious Disease. She called me back and explained that she was going to admit me to the hospital under her service and I would get the antiviral IV medication that I need along with monitoring. She also contacted the Attending Cardiologist of the Transplant team to explain the plan and confirm my medications. She is so awesome!!!

Heart transplant patients can not take Paxlovid because it interacts with the anti rejection medications and we are at a higher risk for complications from Covid because we are immunocompromised.

The hospital called me around 5:30pm last night to let me know that a bed was available. David said he was feeling a little PTSD because almost a year ago we were packing to go to the hospital and here we were doing it again. I completely understand how he was feeling. My admission went very smoothly and I received my loading dose of Remdisivir around 10pm!!!! Thank you so much Dr. Ganim and

Dr. Paez. !!!

I will be here for a couple days to get the next few doses. I’m not feeling great. I still have body aches, a headache and super sore throat but it could be worse so I’m counting my blessings!

Each 💔 Beat Matters

KellyAnn