The source for this article is well-known to the Butler Eagle, but chose to remain anonymous to protect his business.

When the COVID-19 vaccine became available, “Sam” looked up information on the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and other reputable groups.

He quarantined at home as necessary, wore a mask when he had to go out, and kept hand sanitizer in his car.

Sam, 36, saw some of his friends contract COVID-19 and recover at home with symptoms that weren't too agonizing.

“I'm healthy, and people my age tend to recover from it, so I didn't really see a reason to get vaccinated right away,” he recalled.

It's a decision he would — thankfully — live to regret.

Sam even felt confident enough to go on vacation at the end of July, flying to Chicago then West Palm Beach, Fla., before moving on to Orlando.

He traveled with his girlfriend, a medical professional who was vaccinated early on in the coronavirus pandemic.

When the couple returned home, they ordered Chinese food to enjoy for dinner.“My girlfriend looked over at me and said, 'I can't taste my food,'” Sam recalled.Both Sam and his girlfriend immediately got two COVID-19 tests each, one a rapid response version and the other providing results in one to three days.“Both rapid tests were positive,” Sam said.His girlfriend experienced minor symptoms, and Sam remained symptom free for a little over two days. He then developed an unshakable fever that ranged from 100 to 102.8 degrees.“After a few days of that, I was unable to sleep,” Sam said. “Probably because I was having a hard time breathing.”At first, he had to sit down after walking up the stairs.That progressed to having to sit back down after becoming winded when standing up from the couch.“On the third day, with minimal sleep, I was so out of it and exhausted,” Sam said.

He finally asked his girlfriend to take him to the emergency room at UPMC Passavant Cranberry.“The fact that I was having trouble getting up off the couch, I wasn't used to that,” Sam said.He walked up to the woman at the emergency room triage desk.“I whispered, I said, 'I have COVID, and I can't breathe,'” he recalled. “I was starting to get other symptoms, too.”Sam eventually developed every one of the symptoms on the typical list of COVID-19 symptoms except the loss of taste and smell.Sam spent the entire day in the emergency room receiving test after test.“They said we need to do a CT scan because we think you basically have COVID pneumonia,” he said. “You have to hold your breath for the scan, and that was really hard.”

TreatmentWhen the lung CT scan came back positive for pneumonia, he was put on two to four liters of oxygen and admitted to the hospital.Sam was placed in a negative pressure room, so the air in the room would be circulated and cleaned as he breathed.He continued to struggle with breathing upon getting out of bed to use the bathroom, so doctors continued to increase his oxygen.“Later in the week, I was on 10 or 11 liters of oxygen, and they were using high-flow tubing,” Sam said.

At that point, doctors made the decision to transport Sam by ambulance to UPMC Passavant in Ross Township, where he could receive more intense care for his worsening symptoms.EMTs connected Sam to a nasal cannula to receive oxygen during the short ride south.“Out of nowhere, my heart rate spiked from normal to 166 (beats per minute),” Sam said. “I said, 'Hey, I'm having a hard time breathing, could you sit me up at a 45-degree angle?'”After a short time at UPMC Passavant, doctors got his pounding heart under control, but the effects of COVID-19 on Sam's breathing continued.“My lung capacity was nowhere near what it should have been,” he said.He remained in isolation in a private room for five more days, taking breathing treatments and trying to strengthen his lungs by regularly using the equipment given to him by respiratory therapists.

“My patience was wearing thin from being bored,” Sam said. “I'm pretty active, so to be told 'You can't leave,' it was irritating for me.”His girlfriend, who he called multiple times per day, dropped off a handheld gaming system for him to play, but the boredom was difficult.“Ugh, the reruns on TV and being stuck in a room with no view...” Sam said. “I just wanted to go home and see my girlfriend and my dog and cat.”In addition, the doctors and nurses kept telling him he might be released the next day, only to keep him when the time came because his blood oxygen was still not high enough.His daily blood draw occurred at 3 a.m. An hour later, a nurse would appear to give him a shot in his belly to prevent blood clots. “So, my sleep schedule was all out of whack,” Sam said.When his blood oxygen levels finally evened out to a more normal level, Sam had to walk around in his room for five minutes without getting winded in order to be released from the hospital.“I could tell my lungs weren't great, but I could walk around the room,” Sam said.

He was sprung with a 10-day course of oral steroids and orders not to work for at least 20 days, even though he has a desk job.“I've never been in the hospital that long, so it was pretty unfortunate,” Sam said. He was out of work from the end of July to Aug. 25, but was able to keep up with his bills through Family Medical Leave Act funding and some savings he had accrued. “I didn't really miss a paycheck,” Sam said.

Sam cannot be vaccinated until November, but he plans to get the Pfizer shots as soon as he can.“Going through that, I wish I had gotten the vaccine before,” he said. “I tell people it was one of the scariest times of my life because not being able to breathe was really weird to me.”Although Sam is basically a private person and does not share many life events on social media, he posted his COVID-19 journey on Facebook after he got home from the hospital. “I don't force my opinion onto people,” Sam said. “I say, 'It's your choice,' but I tell people my situation really sucked.”

He was humbled by his experience with the virus, especially since he knows of people who did not recover.“I don't go around puffing my chest out like 'I beat COVID,'” he said. “There was a point when I didn't even talk about it.”Sam is now back to normal and gearing up for snowboarding season. “I'm happy to be out of the hospital, and I don't want to deal with that again,” he said.