Waterford: MaryLou Gannotti, who is slowly emerging from a COVID-19 attack, wants people to know that the disease can ambush you without warning, even if you are in the health picture.
If there ever was a healthy family, the Gannottis would be. MaryLou described herself, her husband Greg, 56, and her two children, Jake, 19, and Luke, 14, as “a family of fitness enthusiasts” involved in the wrestling and, in the case of Greg, coaching, and enjoying outdoor activities, including paddleboarding.
But in late December 2020, all four fell with COVID-19.
MaryLou also wants people to know “that it takes an encounter that can last a second, 30 minutes, an hour, but if you think you’re safe with this very good friend, you may not be.”
How it happened
The Gannottis suspect they hired COVID-19 from a friend of Greg’s as they had spent time together. MaryLou said her son started clearing his throat almost immediately after Christmas, even though he had no cough. This seemed a little strange, but she didn’t think much of it.
Then, on December 28, MaryLou got up to go to work at Coastal Connecticut Research, a medical clinic in New London. She said she felt tired on waking, but attributed that feeling to being the mother of the family and recently ending the holidays. “I cook, clean, shop. So I said, “You know what, it’s just ended my life.” I thought I could have had the blues because I couldn’t see my mother or other relatives during Christmas. “
While working that Monday, MaryLou received a text from Greg.
“He revealed to me that his friend’s partner tested positive for COVID-19. He said, “We’ll take the test,” and I thought to myself, “Don’t tell me the frog in my son’s throat is CVVIDA,” MaryLou said.
She then told her boss, who sent her home and closed the facility for three days. All his teammates gave negatives. Greg and Luke knew they had tested positive on Wednesday of that week; MaryLou and Jake, Thursday. None of them really believed he was sick until he got positive results.
MaryLou had a certain disbelief; his family was healthy and had followed all protocols. This is a family of fighters, and they would be fine, she decided. She was emboldened when, during these first days after giving a positive, the symptoms were not excessive.
“Initially I thought to myself, I can cross for that, this is like your basic cold. So guess what, I was wrong, ”he said. “After a few days, my lungs became so compromised. We took our temperatures every day, none of us had anything above 98.6 (degrees), but I ended up chilling, had some body discomfort and had a headache. The biggest struggle for me was my breathing – I felt like there was a rock in my chest. And I felt like someone had a rope around their lungs and they kept tightening the rope. ”
Her children and spouse were not so ill. He lost his taste and smell; they did not. Jake had the mildest case. Luke felt a tightness in his chest, but, as MaryLou said, she’s 14 and she’s 50, “so she’s tougher than me.” Greg had what looked like a wet cough, while MaryLou had trouble producing it: “It was just pain. And tension.”
By his own admission, he should have gone to the hospital to take extra breath, a nurse in the office told him after the test.
“My concern as a mother and wife is, what happens if I leave my family? I almost felt like I was leaving, I won’t be back, “he said.” I am a lifelong Catholic. They say the voice of the head is sometimes the voice of God and the voice told me, “Stay home. You’ll get it. I didn’t know I needed extra oxygen, but by the grace of God I got it.”
Although MaryLou said she has persistent problems, she and the rest of her family were cleaned up around Jan. 7-9.
“Before I had the flu, bronchitis, I had illnesses that knocked me down, but then I got up again. This is not yours, you stay in bed for three days and then get up again, ”he said. “This is yours, stay in bed for nine days, start getting up again and then fall again. I don’t exercise as much as before, I try to rebuild my lungs, I walk my dog again, which was starting to tear the house apart. I think getting into this in good health helps recovery, but it certainly didn’t ease the virus. It still divides and conquers. “
COVID cocktail
The Gannottis tried a litany of remedies as they recovered with varying degrees of success. MaryLou took to Facebook to tell her she was out of breath and ask how to mitigate it. A friend of hers, who is an occupational therapist and has worked with COVID-19 patients, told her to put it on her stomach. Another friend said he would practice yoga breathing.
MaryLou continued her own research on YouTube, where she found a doctor who appeared on the BBC describing a breathing technique and also advised her to pass stomach to stomach.
“My friend said I spend at least two hours a day on my stomach. Don’t sleep on your back, don’t lie on your back, “said MaryLou.” I made everyone in this house do ‘belly time.’ At the time, I almost felt like all I could do was sleep. He slept up to 12-15 hours a day. He had no energy, but he knew that the only way to achieve this was to sleep and close the outside world. I didn’t want anyone to share stats with me. “
Another friend of MaryLou, who is a nurse, told her that she needed to start taking a certain amount of aspirin every day because people are more prone to blood clots with COVID-19. MaryLou finally started a diet, which she calls “the COVID cocktail,” of vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, and vitamin B12. A naturopath told him to start taking black cumin oil as well.
“Because this was happening, I just wanted to survive. He knew he could live or die. I knew the statistics of this disease, I also knew I wanted to live, “he said.” I’m not saying people who died didn’t have the will to live, but I knew I wanted to get out of it. “
Patrick Cahill, a doctor at Backus Hospital, described how devastating COVID-19 can be to a family that all live under one roof.
“Most of the time, when the first person knows they have it, they’ve already passed it on to the rest of the household,” he said. “The highest period of risk of transmission is the two days more or less before the onset of symptoms. The moment someone is symptomatic, people often try to talk to each other about the reality that this is COVID. They will say that it is a cold, that they can wait a couple of days, that tests could be done when things get worse and, at this moment, it is likely that everyone who lives with them has been exposed. “
Cahill confirmed that the healthier someone is when faced with the virus, the more likely they are to recover quickly. He also said he understood MaryLou’s decision not to go to a hospital.
“It’s completely understandable and it’s nothing for anyone to ever blame, especially if you’re generally in excellent health,” Cahill said. “What I’m trying to tell people shortly after they’ve been diagnosed, which would probably be a big help, is to see if they can buy a dust oximeter or borrow it from a friend just to monitor their oxygen levels. . ”
He also advised people to get vaccinated as soon as possible and pay attention in case they are part of an eligibility group.
As people look for alternative methods to treat COVID-19, Cahill recommends consulting with their doctors. And he said that self-expression, or getting in the stomach, is one of the strategies “that we tell everyone in the hospital to do because this has been a very easy and non-invasive non-toxic method to improve results. ”.
The kindness of others
Although the time spent inside and struggling with her health was painful for MaryLou, she said the people who contacted her were “angels” and helped her significantly in the test. The kindness of strangers even saved a birthday.
In addition to the whole family who caught the coronavirus during the holidays, it also happened to be Luke’s birthday on January 2nd and MaryLou’s 50th on January 12th.
“January is already a rotten month for birthdays, but do you want to talk about the worst birthday month in history?” Said MaryLou. “It simply came to our notice then. I went to church this past Sunday and a friend said to me, “It’s good to see you,” and I said, “It’s good to see you.”
On Luke’s birthday, the family had ordered Walmart to give him groceries, including a cake. But the cake was not there. Greg contacted the delivery man, but Walmart wouldn’t let him return the cake, so he grabbed one for the family and put it out the door.
“My husband gave her a big tip to cover the cost. A stranger we didn’t know took money out of his pocket and handed out a birthday cake. It’s something like that, ”MaryLou said through tears,“ that drowns me out because they say Jesus shows up when people do things like that. We didn’t even know this woman, but I knew that our order was confused and she went to choose a birthday cake for our children because we couldn’t ”.
Hope and family
MaryLou mentioned a surprising piece of family history: her great-grandmother, Carmina DiBiasio, died of the flu in Italy in 1919, during another global pandemic.
“She was 32 when she died, leaving behind my grandfather Andrea, her brother Tommasso and sisters Concettina and Caterina,” he said. “My grandfather was about to turn 11 when he died, and he was the eldest of his four children. She emigrated to the United States at age 16 and much of it had to do with her evil stepmother. “
The Gannottis are the last cautionary tale in MaryLou’s eyes. He said the coronavirus is insidious: it can seize anyone at any time.
Still, MaryLou said she wants to give people hope.
“There is hope in kindness, there is hope in compassion, the wonderful things that people prayed for us, that they sent us messages, that my brothers checked with me, my sister, my mother and my aunt.” , he said. “I had cousins who prayed for us. We thank the people who prayed for us. I don’t want to sound evangelical, but it makes a difference. “