Kirsten Colantino wants everyone to know just how dangerous and life altering coronavirus can be.
More than a month after she first started showing symptoms, the 53-year-old from Dublin is still battling COVID-19. And as she saw people suggesting it’s time to start opening up the state again or complaining that they can’t go play tennis, Colantino felt a need to show people the harsh reality of fighting the virus.
Colantino, who grew up in Dublin and returned 15 years ago to raise her children in the Monadnock region, shared her ordeal with the Ledger-Transcript, thanking those who helped along the way and sharing all she’s learned from medical professionals from the region and as far away as California.
“It just seems like people aren’t getting it. It’s a nightmare and I thought it was important to get a personal voice out there,” Colantino said. “It drives me crazy because here I am fighting for my life. I had to get through every day knowing I was going to live, and I wanted people to understand this is not a joke.”
Colantino views herself as a healthy person. She runs three to six miles a day and on days she didn’t go for run, she’d be out hiking or some other physical activity. She ate healthy and hadn’t been sick in more than a decade. Then she got coronavirus.
“It’s been 33 days of craziness,” Colantino said Saturday. “I’m uber-healthy and I got it, so you can too.”
It all started with a tickle in the back of her throat on March 19. At the time she was returning from a road trip with her daughter Florence after taking a few self guided tours of colleges in Georgia and Florida. The two had planned to fly, but as concerns around COVID-19 started to come up, the two decided to drive instead.
“Because things started looking a little skeptical, we decided to drive because we thought it would be a little safer,” Colantino said.
Colantino said they were careful, wiping down hotel rooms with Clorox wipes, not going out to restaurants and staying away from others during the six-day trip.
“We didn’t touch anything unless we had a Clorox wipe,” Colantino said.
But when Colantino felt something coming on, she felt it would be best to get home – and the quicker the better.
They arrived back on Dublin on March 20, she went for her typical run, but the next morning, “I woke up completely and utterly lifeless,” she said. “It was like being hit by a freight train.”
Colantino said she knew right away it was coronavirus. She had a fever, cough, difficulty breathing and zero energy. From her bed she texted Florence, who is a junior at the Forman School in Connecticut, and quickly came up with a plan.
Florence was to stay at least eight feet away, constantly wash her hands and couldn’t stay in the same room other to drop off supplies. While her mom lay in bed, Florence cooked and cleaned and kept the wood stove going.
“She’s my hero,” Colantino said. “She’s 17 years old and for 18 days she lived by herself. She definitely pulled herself up by the boot straps.”
All the while Colantino was panic-stricken that her youngest child would become infected.
Needing to stay quarantined, Colantino told a few friends who “grocery shopped for us, and texted me every day, afternoon and night. They kept us going.”
While Colantino was struggling and knew what she had, she waited till Monday to call her primary physician, Annette Brooks. It was two more days before she could get an appointment at the respiratory care clinic in New Ipswich set up by Monadnock Community Hospital.
Colantino explained a surreal experience once arriving, having to wait in the car until a doctor came out to get her in head-to-toe protective gear. Once in the exam room, she remembers microphones covered in plastic so the nurses outside the room could hear everything and only being able to see her doctor’s eyes.
Colantino said she was sorry because she didn’t want anyone else to catch it. Unfortunately there were no test kits at the time, but it was clear that Colantino had contracted COVID-19.
“Even going into the COVID clinic I was putting people at risk and I didn’t want to do that,” she said. Upon leaving, Colantino watched as nurses feverishly cleaned the door and anything else she may have touched.
By the time she was tested, two and a half weeks into her battle with coronavirus, Colantino’s results came back negative.
“There are a lot more like me in the area,” Colantino said.
The good news was that Colantino wasn’t at the point where she was in need of hospitalization, but she was still very sick. She was called every day by a nurse to monitor her symptoms.
Thanks to a friend who dropped off a thermometer and oxygen reader, Colantino checked both every hour, on the hour to provide her doctors and nurses with as much information as possible. The first full weekend was rough, as more symptoms came about like diarrhea and head aches but she got some much needed reassurance through the on-call doctor.
“Kudos to Monadnock Hospital because they really have an amazing system that keeps everybody safe,” Colantino said.
With all the information out there, Colantino assumed once she got to day 14, her symptoms would subside – that was not the case. So she went in for an x-ray that determined she had also come down with pneumonia in her left lobe.
That’s when she decided to tell her mom, Nancy Cayford, and others what she’d been going through. It led to more people reaching out, cards in the mail and meals showing up on their door steps.
“I don’t know how to thank them,” Colantino said. “I just have the most amazing family and friends. I’m so blessed.”
Colantino had no appetite, but after losing six pounds in two weeks, she started force feeding herself anything she could. She went for immunity-boosting foods like raw garlic and mushrooms, along with red meat and chicken, which goes directly against her pescatarian diet. But if it would help her get better, Colantino was willing to try anything.
There were a few good days mixed in, which gave Colantino hope that she had turned the corner and was on the mend. But each time the virus would take hold and symptoms would return.
“One day it was so hard I literally rolled out of bed and got on my knees,” Colantino said. “There were days I’d have energy and would sit up and look out the window, the next day I’d sleep all day.”
At day 25, new symptoms like dizziness and confusion showed up, along with weird smells and tastes. She was also sick to her stomach for five days.
“Everything tasted like rotten metal,” Colantino said. “Every day is different. Every hour is different. Zero rhyme or reason to this virus.”
Through friends and family, Colantino has connected with Jennifer Babik, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco and an internal medicine physician in South Carolina, both of which provided more information into her battle and how she should proceed once symptom free.
“(Babik) talked me off one of the many ledges I was on,” Colantino said. “She gave me hope and just had different insight.”
She was told that once symptom free she should continue to self-isolate for three weeks, and not just three days.
“People have to play it safe for themselves and the community,” she said. “I’m doing what I have to do to get better and keep everybody safe.”
In all, she went to the clinic three times, had two separate trips to MCH for x-rays and was twice visited by a local paramedic for blood samples and to be checked out.
As of Saturday, Colantino still had a cough and breathing issues and the occasional fever.
“Sometimes I have energy, sometimes I don’t. It depends on the day,” Colantino said. “I’m just shocked I still have it. I know I’m out of the woods, but I still have my fever, my sore throat and cough.”
While the physical impact of the virus has been clear, Colantino said there is a mental toll that it takes.
Yesterday marked a big moment for Colantino, as she returned to work as a manager for customer operations and supply chain for Target at C&S Wholesale Grocers.
One thing Colantino is thankful for is that she never had to be admitted to the hospital, although some days she wondered if that would be her fate.
There has been progress, as she’s been able to go outside, make her own lunch, sit by the fire and climb the stairs. But the lingering symptoms are concerning to Colantino as she thinks about the future.
“I’m wondering if I’m ever going to be able to breathe normally again like I did before,” Colantino said. “Is my immunity shot? I’m worried.”
To keep her going, Colantino thinks about the day she’ll be able to see her family and friends again. And as an avid outdoors person, her goal is to make it to the top of Mount Monadnock and celebrate.
And she has her daughter to thank.
“This is her journey just as much as it is mine,” Colantino said.