At 41 years old and in the best shape of my life, and while practicing social distancing, I contracted COVID-19 and it made me sick for around 20 days, depending on how you count. Fortunately, it was a mostly mild case and I did not require hospitalization. I did, however,... 1/

...end up at urgent care on my worst day, in order to rule out pneumonia. They ended confirming that I was developing pneumonia and put me on medication. Within 24 hours, my improvement began. Maybe the meds, maybe just timing. But urgent care was scary af because... 2/

...everyone there was presumptive #covid and most ended up leaving in ambulances. Here in queens, despite the desolate streets and bare sidewalks, ambulance sirens are nearly constant. Most are carting the seriously ill to the overloaded hospitals... 3/

... many of those patient will never leave the hospital. A friend of a friend is a criticalist at Elmhurst Hospital and has never seen anything like this... when most ICU beds are vacated by death, rather than recovery. I was lucky that my case was mild... 4/

To varying degrees on different days, my symptoms were: fever (every day, starting in the afternoon. peaking at night), headache, body aches, sore throat, swollen nodes, weak dry cough, shortness of breath, and my chest was tight when I tried to breathe deeply... 5/

The shortness of breath was the most odd. Just hours before my first fever, I had run 8 miles in under 65 minutes (in a deserted cemetery by my house). By day 6, simply walking to the bathroom left me winded. A flight of stairs required a recovery period to catch my breath... 6/

I was lucky. Only on two days was I so sick that I had stay in bed all day. And none of my family developed any symptoms, somehow. I'm day 6 recovered after 20 days sick, so I'd say all of us are in the clear. Oh I forgot the worst symptom of all... 7/

The night sweats. MY GOD the night sweats. I would wake up in PUDDLES of sweat. On the worst nights, it was every 30m from 130a to 5a or so. Some nights just one episode or two. But the disrupted sleep made everything worse, especially my (normally cheery) mood.

The point of all this... this thing is real, it is serious, and it can strike anyone. Yes it is worse for those with medical vulnerabilities, but it can harm or kill ANYONE. And it has. Stay safe and LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS at CDC, WHO, and NIH. 9/9