On the first week of April we received a call from a desperate husband advising us that his wife was bed-sick with trouble breathing, cough and a continual fever. The symptoms she displayed made us very worried that she may have coronavirus.

To provide a little context: They’re both MyClinic patients being treated for diabetes and hypertension. The wife is a 44-year-old compliant insulin-dependent diabetic that takes very good care of her health.

Upon consulting with one of our volunteer providers, he advised to have her tested for COVID-19. Early April the only testing site in our area was at the Ballpark near 45^th Street in West Palm Beach and required making an appointment and transportation to testing site.

It had already been 5 days since the wife had been ill and in bed, so it was imperative that she was tested.
We obtained an appointment for Wednesday, but unfortunately the prior Tuesday night the wife started having labored breathing so the husband took her to Jupiter Medical Center’s Emergency Department. They tested her, took an X-ray of her lungs and diagnosed her with viral pneumonia that needed an antibiotics treatment.

The patient was sent home to rest and start her medication. When the COVID-19 test came back positive, our MyClinic doctor added an additional medication to her regimen. Our staff checked in on the patient two days after having started the medication and she was feeling much better already.

Our doctor cautioned on monitoring diabetes, since the patient was not eating enough and the insulin may need to be cautiously regulated. She was able to soon sit up and have productive coughs, breathe and eat better.

Little did we know at the time the husband made that first phone call that his 65-year-old mother had been in the hospital for the prior 2 weeks and has also tested positive for COVID-19.

Once he disclosed this information to us, we were certain that the household needed to be strictly monitored, advised on following quarantine and social distancing rules.

We also referred them for food and rent assistance, since we did not want them to go to work and expose other residents in the community.

There was another couple living in the house who kept social distancing and CDC guidelines, but who continued to work because someone had to pay the rent.

After his mother was released from the hospital to quarantine at home, the husband also started not feeling well, but he chose not to be tested. Since he was not as bad off as his wife and mother, he would self-monitor and be the caregiver for them. He would sleep on the floor to keep an eye on his wife’s condition at night.  It took about two weeks for everyone in the household to start the long, but successful recovery process.