Golf great Norman issues COVID-19 warning
Greg Norman offered graphic and cautionary advice for anyone who may still be minimizing COVID-19, describing in detail symptoms of “this hideous virus” that sent him to a Florida hospital for the second time since Christmas.
On Christmas Day, he posted Instagram images of himself lying in a hospital bed and wrote: “This sums it all up. My Christmas Day.”
He was released and returned home, only to post another image from Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center on Sunday while writing that he was receiving “an infusion of bamlanivimab antibody,” a monoclonal antibody for which the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorized use last month for mild-to-moderate cases. The drug is in the same family of medications as an experimental treatment President Donald Trump received when he was stricken with COVID-19 in early October. Although he was optimistic that it would put him on a “path to full recovery,” the virus wreaked havoc on the 65-year-old golfing great.
“I am fit and strong and have a high tolerance for pain, but this virus kicked the crap out of me like nothing I have ever experienced before,” he wrote.
“Muscle and joint pain on another level. Headaches that feel like a chisel going through your head scraping little bits off each time, fever, muscles that just did not want to work, like yesterday walking my dog Apollo, my quads and hip flexors just didn't want to work due to fatigue. Then my taste failed where beer tastes bad and wine the same. And finally, at times struggling with memory of names and things. Then there is irritation.”
Norman and his son, Greg Jr., played in the father-son PNC Championship in Orlando, Fla., over the Dec. 20 weekend, and afterward Greg Jr. wrote on social media that both he and his wife, Michelle, had tested positive for the virus.
He tweeted on Dec. 26 that he and his wife had experienced no symptoms and were isolating.
His father's coronavirus test Dec. 22 was negative, but he experienced flu-like symptoms and was in isolation until things changed on Christmas Day.
On Sunday, Norman thanked health care workers and scientists who worked to develop a vaccine, but offered a sobering reminder to “doubters.”.
“Please take care. And for those doubters out there, do not judge or cast unwarranted comments and opinions. I would not want anyone, even you, to experience this hideous virus. So I ask, do what is right, not just for you, but your family, friends, co-workers and other people around.”