COVID-19 survivor wants masks to be mandatory
After surviving COVID-19, Jim Oliver is urging Niagara residents to wear face masks.
The 63-year-old Welland man says he never wants to be that sick again.
“I don't want it back,” he says. “I have never been so sick in my life that I can remember.”
Oliver says he was working as a crane operator on April 17 but left early that day with stomach pain. His condition continued to deteriorate in the days that followed, leading to a hospital emergency department visit where tests showed he was infected with the potentially deadly virus.
He’s not certain where he got it; no one else where he works had the virus or any symptoms of it.
However, he suspects he may have brought home more than just some fresh bananas from one of several visits he made to grocery stores he’d visited before he got sick.
As the virus progressed — eventually leading to pneumonia — he was inflicted with numerous symptoms.
He was nauseous, had a sore throat, persistent dry cough, fever, throbbing headaches, dry eyes, trouble keeping his balance. It was so difficult to breathe, he had trouble speaking. And he was experiencing sharp pains throughout his body.
Through it all, he says, he felt exhausted.
“I was so freaking tired and weak.”
He wondered if he’d survive. Oliver, however, says he had too much to live for.
“I’ve got a good-looking wife. I ain’t dying yet,” he quips.
His wife, Barb Oliver, says she’s pretty sure she, too, had a much less severe case of the virus. Even so, it left her relegated to the couch in the living room, feeling awful for a week.
“I was down for the count and the only thing I was able to do was get Jim what he needed,” she said.
During the worst of her symptoms, she was too sick to leave her home. By the time she was able to get tested, results came back negative.
On May 20, Oliver was again tested for the virus. That time he, too, tested negative. But he’s not out of the woods yet.
Symptoms are still present, as his body continues to recover.
“Even though he’s negative, he’s still getting new symptoms all the time,” Barb says, adding he’s also at risk of developing blood clots.
“I coughed up some blood the other day,” Oliver says.
Despite the severity of his illness, Oliver says for some people symptoms are so mild they might not even know they have it.
“How many people are they spreading it to? If they sneeze at the grocery store or even just cough a little bit. It happens,” he said.
Oliver remains concerned about his friends and family in the community as well as his own health, because it’s still unknown if someone who has recovered from COVID-19 can be reinfected.
Considering the recent challenges in getting people to follow social distancing requirements, Oliver said wearing masks should be mandatory to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
“I have trouble wearing masks, too, because I can’t breathe,” he says, adding some masks he’s worn caused his glasses to fog up.
“But now, I don’t care. I’m scared to go back out anywhere once this is over, in case I get it again.”