Hudson mom Amy Driscoll shares her ‘brutal’ encounter after being diagnosed with coronavirus

Amy Driscoll

Amy Driscoll, a Hudson mother, shared her experience of testing positive for COVID-19 with The Plain Dealer Sunday.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Amy Driscoll knew she was in trouble when she woke at 3 a.m. on Thursday and was having trouble breathing.

The 48-year-old Hudson woman’s first thought was the flu; she’d been feeling a little run down and feverish the day before. Still, she was worried.

Her new symptoms — a racing heart, a “terrible” headache and a hard cough — had come on fast. And she’d never felt quite so sick before, even when she was hospitalized for pneumonia, she told The Plain Dealer in an interview Sunday.

In the back of her mind, an unwelcome thought surfaced: coronavirus.

Health officials had reported Summit County’s first case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, only days before. Across the state, the number of cases was steadily climbing as testing increased. People were getting the illness who had no known exposure to it, a phenomenon called “community spread.”

COVID-19 is a respiratory illness with symptoms similar to those of the flu — fever, cough and shortness of breath — that has infected 37 people in Ohio as of Sunday night.

There are no medications approved to treat it and wider testing only became available last week in Ohio.

Driscoll texted her cousin Molly, a pediatric nurse who works at University Hospitals Ahuja Medical Center, to get some advice.

Her temperature was 100.2. She was “struggling to take in air.” She told Molly she was worried she might be getting pneumonia again.

The cousin told Driscoll she needed to go to the hospital, but to call first. Emergency room staff at UH Ahuja told Driscoll to call the Ohio Department of Health’s coronavirus hotline first. No one answered.

Molly told Driscoll to sit tight and called the emergency department herself. She told them her cousin was coming in.

Isolation and positive test

After waking her 14-year-old son long enough to tell him she was going to the hospital, Driscoll drove herself the 25 minutes to UH Ahuja in Beachwood. Once there, she called the emergency department from the parking lot. A nurse in a mask and gloves came out to meet her and walked her to the department’s isolation room.

When they checked her blood pressure, it was low. Her heart rate was well above normal, in the 120s. Concerned she might be severely ill with an infection, she was admitted to the hospital Thursday morning and moved to another isolation room on the second floor.

Medical staff gave her medication for the pain, ran an IV for fluids and took a CT scan of her chest to check for pneumonia. Then, they started “every test they could think of,” Driscoll said.

One by one, they came back negative. It wasn’t flu. It wasn’t strep. There was no bacteria they could find.

Then, they took a swab of her nose and throat and sent it off to be tested for coronavirus. UH began in-house laboratory testing for the coronavirus on Friday. The medical center’s lab can perform up to 50 tests per day.

All Driscoll could do was wait. She wasn’t allowed visitors. Thursday night, she said, was “horrible.”

“It was lonely. It was disorienting,” to be in isolation. She was deeply grateful for her nurses, who were “fantastic” and offered to come sit with her in the middle of the night if she was lonely.

“Every time they came in my room they risked exposure to the virus,” she said. “I just can’t thank them enough.”

On Saturday, the results came in: positive.

Quarantine and contact tracing

Driscoll has been home in self-quarantine with her son since Saturday afternoon, when she was released from the hospital.

In order to avoid exposing him any further, the two are practicing physical distancing within the house, she said. “If I’m upstairs, he’s in the basement. If he comes up, I move to another room,” she said.

Driscoll has been in near-constant touch with officials at Summit County Public Health, who immediately began tracing the people she’d been in close contact with over the past two weeks before she fell ill.

“That was intense,” she said. “A lot of questions, and a lot of me trying to remember who I was in contact with, when, where and for how long.”

She and her son also check in twice a day with their temperature and any symptoms they may have. So far, her son is feeling fine.

Driscoll isn’t sure how many people public health officials may have identified who were at risk from being exposed to her. The healthcare benefits and insurance company Driscoll works for sent all employees home to work remotely, which was planned if any employee tested positive, she said.

She also has no idea how she encountered the virus herself. She was at a Cavaliers game March 7, and her ex-husband recently traveled to Germany, but it’s unclear if that’s how she got sick.

For now, she's doing okay. Her fever has stayed at 99 degrees. Mostly, she's exhausted.

"I’ll get a burst of energy and think that I can do something, and then I can’t. Getting up and down the steps is a lot."

Sending a message

After returning home, Driscoll was dismayed by what she saw in her Facebook feed: a lot of people questioning the need for social distancing, school closures and similar measures designed to “flatten the curve” and reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

She got on her page and decided to set the record straight about what she called her “brutal” encounter with the disease.

Driscoll wrote, “I am the face of this infection. It is brutal, and I’m a healthy 48-year-old with no underlying conditions. I’m not 100% better but I’m home resting. Please take this seriously. People you love, their lives may depend on it.”

Driscoll uses her maiden name, Brock, on Facebook.

The post came at a time when Ohio, and the country, was grappling with the reality that “community spread” of the virus was going to be far-reaching.

“The patient had no known travel-associated risk or known exposure to someone infected with the virus,” the Summit County Public Health department said in a Sunday release about the second case — Driscoll’s — in that county. “Therefore, this is most likely the result of spread of the virus in our community.”

Driscoll wasn’t quite prepared for the reaction.

By Sunday evening, the Facebook post had been shared more than 20,000 times and more than 4,600 people from Chillicothe to suburban Los Angeles had commented on Driscoll’s status.

“I really just wanted people to know that there are people who are sick in our community, and that they need to be careful,” she said.

Most commenters sent prayers and praised her for her openness in sharing her experience. Others debated about the severity of the virus, how rapidly it was spreading and the risks of transmission from people who have experienced it but had no symptoms.

One woman commented from California. “Your story is my story. I was fine Wednesday night when I went to sleep and [at] six Thursday when I woke up, [I was] feeling achy feverish and had a bad cough. I got tested Thursday afternoon and got the results on Saturday saying I tested positive for COVID-19. I have no idea how I contacted it as I was not around anybody who is sick or had traveled recently. I am on the mend and feeling much better each day. However, my husband and I are both on a 14 day quarantine. [I am] grateful that I have a mild case. Stay well everyone and wash those hands!”

Driscoll was surprised by how far her story reached, and is happy it seems to have raised awareness.

“People seem grateful,” she said.

Plain Dealer reporters Ginger Christ and Rachel Dissell contributed to this story.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the steps Driscoll’s workplace has taken since her positive test. The company implemented a remote work plan to keep employees out of the office, according to the company.

Read more coronavirus coverage:

Summit County woman is face of the coronavirus pandemic

Ohioans adjust to coronavirus

37 people in Ohio have confirmed coronavirus

Ohio governor orders bars and restaurants closed Sunday; carryout still allowed

Cleveland Clinic identifies ‘handful’ of positive coronavirus cases

Hospitals to offer drive-thru coronavirus testing

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.