COUNTY'S FIRST CASES
The world has changed in the past 12 months for Al and Rita Lane, of Butler.
Al has the dubious distinction of having the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Butler County, although he believes he caught it from Rita.
The Lanes are among the 9,145 county residents who have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began.
On March 13, 2020, Al said he was working at the Grapevine Center in Butler as the director of peer support, which helps people recover from mental health issues, when he had an appointment with a client who was displaying symptoms of what he suspected was the coronavirus.
He closed the center after the appointment and called his doctor, who scheduled a test for him the next day.
No symptoms emerged on March 14 or 15, but his doctor called him on the 15th and told him he had the virus.
“I was fine on Sunday (March 15),” Al said. “I was out running, training for the Pittsburgh Marathon. Monday, I wasn't fine. I knew I had it. It wasn't a surprise. I didn't realize I was the first.”
A representative from the Pennsylvania Department of Health called him a few days later and confirmed he was the county's first confirmed case.
Al's client was eventually tested, but she was negative, he said.
Rita said she began feeling sick with symptoms that included body aches and loss of smell and taste in early March.“Nothing hurt like that,” Rita said. “I remember my toes hurt. I didn't know my toes could hurt like that.”The Lanes are among the more than 29 million Americans and 961,456 Pennsylvanians who have contracted the virus over the past 12 months, according to figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health.The virus has claimed more than 527,000 lives across the country, including 24,530 in the state.Al was 64 years old when he got sick, and Rita was 57. Because of the limited availability of tests when the coronavirus began to spread throughout the country at that time, Rita was not able to get tested, but she said she knew she had the virus.She said she does not know how or when she was exposed to it, but she was the first person at Southwest Behavioral Health Management in New Castle, where she works, to contract the virus.“I was terrified,” Rita said, when she realized she and Al had the virus. “I had a 17-year-old son, there was no cure, all we could do is wait — let the science catch up with the virus.”Their son, Patrick, now 18, never displayed symptoms and has not been sick, she said.“I'm a mother,” Rita said. “My first thought was not being able to care for him.”A runner for the past 35 years, Al said he believed he was healthy enough to avoid catching the virus.“I didn't think I was personally at risk,” Al said. “It was more than I bargained for.”From then on, the family rarely left their house until Al and Rita got their first doses of the Moderna vaccine Feb. 17. They are scheduled to receive their second doses March 17.More than 98 million doses of vaccine have been administered across the country, including more than three million in Pennsylvania.“We stayed inside for a month,” Rita said.
Both said the same symptoms they felt earlier returned after getting their first vaccinations, but only for a day.The Lanes said they are slowly beginning to feel like themselves again.At one point when he was sick, Al said he woke up one night feeling dehydrated and generally out of sorts.He said he tried to drink a bottle of water Patrick brought him, but ended up getting soaked.“He never let me live it down,” Al said. “I literally missed my mouth. I just couldn't get it together.”Before he got sick, he said he was running 10 miles a day to prepare for the marathon. It took months after he got sick to build up enough stamina to trudge three miles.“I could feel my lungs,” Al said. “I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the stamina. I think I'm back now, I ran seven yesterday.”A chest X-ray in January showed no problems, he said.The chest pains Rita said she woke up experiencing one day turned out to be more serious.She was diagnosed with scarred lungs. Since then, she said she has learned that heart and chest pain is a transient side effect of the virus.“I got lung scarring that I'll have for the rest of my life,” Rita said.She said she now walks every day to keep her heart and lungs as strong as possible.A lot has changed since the early days of the pandemic.Testing is available to anyone who wants it, people are getting vaccinated and disinfectants have returned to store shelves, Rita said.“It was a whole different world a year ago,” she said.
