A UCSF pharmacist who was Yolo County's first positive COVID-19 case still doesn't know if she has fully recovered.
Marilyn Stebbins recently wrote about and discussed her six weeks of misery and hospitalization at UC Davis Medical Center in an interview posted on YouTube.
The Davis resident, who considers herself "a pretty fit 58-yer-old," says it was late February when she and her husband had just returned from a ski trip to Idaho.
Then, she gradually became very ill.
"I woke up and everything sort of hit me," Stebbins said. "I sort of felt absolutely horrible. I had myalgia, every muscle in my body hurt."
She said she was nauseous, but never had a fever and thought she had the flu.
But after visits to her doctors and a series of medical tests, Stebbins was admitted to the hospital and put on oxygen support. The Centers for Disease Control ordered a coronavirus test.
When it came back positive, everything changed.
"Anyone coming in my room had to have PPE, which at that point, didn't just include the beekeeper hat and the gowning, but it was the actual respirator because they hadn't determined that COVID was droplets," Stebbins said. "They were still looking at it as aerosolized."
She had become the first COVID-19 patient in Yolo County.
Even after she was discharged from the hospital, Stebbins continued to suffer intestinal issues. She's better now and will soon have her fourth, and hopefully final, COVID-19 test.
"It's a completely different feeling from anything I've had before," Stebbins said.
"I have never, ever been that sick."
