RECOVERED AND THANKFUL
Stamford resident’s life returning to normalcy after COVID-19 bout
STAMFORD — Taylor Boynton walked outside his Stamford apartment building and got some fresh air Tuesday afternoon, his first taste of the outdoors in over 17 days.
Boynton, who received permission from his doctor and city health authorities to leave his residence at Harbor Point, has been getting over a bout with the coronavirus. He is about 15 pounds thinner after the ordeal, but was feeling cheerful and fortunate that he didn’t have it worse.
Like many, Boynton, 37, can recall his last normal weekend before COVID-19 changed everything. For his job in real estate, he was in the New Rochelle area on March 13, a known hot spot where the disease has been prevalent. Boynton also was at a cook-out with friends in Stamford March 15, and everyone was taking precautions.
The next day, something strange
happened — he completely lost his sense of taste.
“I couldn’t taste anything. I was eating hot sauce, just to see if it would work. Nothing,” recalled Boynton, an agent with Anthony J. Tropeano Realty.
Then another strange thing happened with his ears.
“I woke up Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, and had sinus pressure,” Boynton said. “I called my doctor in Cos Cob, and he gave me a test just to be on the safe side. They came over to the car, and jammed (the swab) up my nose.”
He was advised then to self-quarantine.
While he never ran a high fever, one of the more common symptoms of the coronavirus, Boynton did not escape the other unpleasant symptoms of the disease: gastric distress and vomiting, on top of unremitting ear pressure.
“On Wednesday, my ears got bad, like being on an airplane, 24 hours. So uncomfortable,” he recalled. “And then I was throwing up. And the throw-up, it was like burning. And I was dizzy, too. That was the worst of it, 36 hours.” He received word from his doctor that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
Eventually, the symptoms began to subside. “I was very fortunate to get a mild form,” Boynton recollected. “Water, soup, sandwiches and Tylenol. Stayed home, watched TV and Netflix.”
He said he was grateful to his circle of friends, along with neighbors in the Harbor Point apartment building — “neighbors who don’t even know me dropped off food.” Boynton was also appreciative of the calls from the Stamford Health Department, who phoned him regularly to check in and see if he needed anything.
He was also pleased to hear that no one from the Stamford party he went to got the coronavirus. He’s still not sure how he picked up the illness. The New Rochelle connection stands out, he said, “but who knows?”
Boynton said he had some anxious moments. “Paranoia set in the first day – you don’t know what to expect. But I set my mind correctly, moved forward with what I had to do, and I was set up for success by my doctor and the health department,” he said.
He was pleased that he did not have to go to the hospital and add another patient to the already strained medical system: “clogging the hospitals — I didn’t want to be that person.”
“I’m very lucky,” he added, “It dissipated pretty fast.”