‘It came back little by little’
Marconi feels lingering effects of COVID diagnosis
RIDGEFIELD — First Selectman Rudy Marconi recalled eating a “beautiful steak” in August — but he couldn’t taste it at the time.
Though he feels fine now, months after being diagnosed with COVID-19, Marconi hadn’t regained that sense yet. The first selectman tested positive for the virus in April — a diagnosis that had resulted in lower oxygen levels and a squelched appetite, among other symptoms — and he still felt the ripple effects of it with some of his senses later on.
“I remember my wife’s looking at me saying, ‘Why can’t you just buy cheap wine? You can’t taste anything.’ ” he said with a laugh. “Or, ‘why are you putting so much salt on your food?’ ”
“It was funny how it came back little by little,” he said of his sense of taste, which
he estimated began coming back in September. “But it came back.”
He remembered his sense of smell returning “right around the same time,” recalling one instance when he smelled smoke wafting off quenched flames in his neighbor’s fire pit.
“So I said, ‘Aha, it’s coming back,’” he said.
Marconi isn’t the only one to have experienced longer-lasting effects from the virus after an initial recovery. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “[w]hile most persons with COVID-19 recover and return to normal health, some patients can have symptoms that can last for weeks or even months after recovery from acute illness.”
From the first of the month to Nov. 14, Ridgefield has recorded 71 cases, according to the state’s COVID-19 data tracker. Connecticut on the whole also hit a noteworthy signpost in recent days, with more than 100,000 cumulative COVID-19 cases in the state since the pandemic’s onset.
For Marconi, he said his symptoms began with “a sinus issue, runny nose” on April 1. On Thursday of that week, he was in bed feeling “horrible,” like he had a fever and a head cold. By that following Monday, he found out he’d tested positive.
“Still, you know, in and out of bed, get dressed, maybe sit on a chair, but I was just so tired, exhausted, just wanted to sleep the whole time,” he said.
His symptoms continued to worsen from there on out — and he was going “downhill quickly” by April 8.
Marconi had to resort to using supplemental oxygen, which he remained on for eight days.
“He instructed my wife what I needed to do, which is to walk a lot, to get up every day, and that this virus makes you a prisoner in your bed, it doesn’t want you to get up,” he said of a primary care provider’s advice. “And that was correct, I didn’t. But she persisted, to her credit.”
He’d also do exercises for his breathing — breathing in, holding it temporarily, breathing out.
Even when his oxygen levels came back up, though, a lower gastrointestinal problem remained. He said he wasn’t hungry and ended up shedding about a dozen pounds. His fever remained until Easter, and by the end of the month and beginning of May, he said he was still presumed positive due to “lingering headache and stomach issues.”
Ten days after that, Marconi said he took a test that had a negative result.
“All in all, I was out of work about 45 days,” he said.
The first selectman noted the need for a vaccine to address the virus’ spread. As the number of cases continues to tick up around the state and across the U.S., the process wages on to ready a strong solution on that front. Some companies have had promising signs for possible vaccines, including one potential vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech and another from Moderna.
“I know a lot of people don’t want to take it,” he said. “I’ll be first in line if I can.”