Do not shame people that catch COVID: 26-year-old coronavirus survivor shares her journey – WAVY.com

MATHEWS COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) Multiple studies show coronavirus numbers are on the rise for people in their 20s.

WAVY.com spoke with one 26-year-old from Mathews County who says the road to recovering from COVID-19 was quite a journey.

At the time I caught COVID, I was staying with my grandparents to take care of my grandmother who had just fallen and fractured a rib. I was there for about a month and was getting ready to go back to my normal life when I caught COVID, said Taylor OBier.

OBier, a former WAVY employee, says she and her parents did everything they could to prevent her grandparents from catching coronavirus. They ran errands for her grandparents, got their groceries, and prepared their meals so they didnt have to leave their house. Then, something happened OBier couldnt prevent.

I also found out about that time that a family member who had been around me had gotten COVID.

OBiers mind raced.

My grandma has breathing trouble as it is. My granddaddy has blood cancer. So its just like the two worst people to have COVID and then the place that I wanted COVID to stay away from the most was the place that I got it and it was brought into. So not only was I kind of fighting it myself, but I was scared to death that my grandfather was going to have extreme complications with it.

Shortly after coming in contact with the family member who tested positive for coronavirus, OBier says she got a headache that wouldnt go away. Then, the fever and chills started.

A first coronavirus test in July came back negative.

Which was so crazy to me because I knew that I had it. I knew that I had been in contact with somebody. I knew that I had all the symptoms, because a week in, thats when the fever was really bad, and the fatigue, I mean I slept, oh my gosh, I slept probably 12 hours a day. Each day was kind of crazy, zero energy. Zero appetite.

OBier decided she needed to take another coronavirus test.

I went and got tested at a different doctors office, I guess maybe more for my peace of mind than anything, to confirm you definitely have it, but also, other people around me. When I told them it came back negative and that was definitely false, they were like, Are you sure? So I guess it was kind of for other people, too, but also just for the contact tracing and stuff to make that a little easier because if Im coming back negative, theyre not reporting that to the state.

The test results from that second coronavirus test came back positive.

After about a week I was like, Im good. This is gone. Its out of my system. I felt really good for a day, and then the next day I woke up and thats when I felt it deep in my chest, and its a very different feeling than any other congestion that Ive had. I expected it to feel the same, but you can tell that its much deeper which is much more frightening obviously. What scared me the most was my shortness of breath. I remember getting up one morning and washing the dishes and that took me out of breath.

OBier says she has no pre-existing medical condition. She says her colds usually only last three days and she rarely, if ever, gets wiped out by illness.

To be 26 and to have that much difficulty with it was just very crazy to me and its very frightening, too, because you dont have any control over it.

With treatment of Tylenol and an inhaler, OBiers symptoms ended after roughly two weeks. During that time, her grandfather tested positive for coronavirus. After roughly two weeks, he also made a full recovery. OBiers family followed all protocols for quarantine and her grandmother never contracted the illness.

OBier says she has mixed feelings about coronavirus positivity numbers growing in her age group.

Its frustrating because I do see people that really dont care, but I do see people that do care and are just kind of having to choose between their mental health and their physical health and also their responsibility to society.

OBier has advice for those who have not been diagnosed with the virus: Do not to shame people that catch COVID.

She continued: I found through my experience that theres this weird shame with it that not a lot of people talk about, shame within yourself that you have it, but also shame from your peers and society that you have it. People look at you almost like you caught it on purpose, that you caught it because of negligence or ignorance, and that wasnt the case in my situation.

OBier says she fears that shame will prevent people those who test positive from telling others they came into contact with that they have the virus. She asks for understanding and vigilance to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

When OBier goes out, she wears a mask, she carries anti-bacterial wipes and hand sanitizer, and she constantly washes her hands. She also tries to limit how much she goes to stores. She says she does have the antibodies, but she isnt sure how long they last, so its important to her to remain vigilant.

I kind of wish more people would take it seriously and be more cautious so we can kind of get over it together, because if we kind of had that mentality from the start, we might be in a different place now.

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Do not shame people that catch COVID: 26-year-old coronavirus survivor shares her journey - WAVY.com