CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — An emergency room doctor at Stroger Hospital wants to share his own story of having COVID-19 and hopes it will reassure patients who are currently fighting it.
It was the middle of March. Stroger ER physician Steven Aks says after a shift, he came down with “a mild eye infection.”
He says he’s not sure how it happened.
“There was not like a moment when I said, ‘Oh, I just got into trouble here.’”
Dr. Aks, who's in his 50s, says he tested positive for COVID-19. He had body aches and was tired but did not have a fever.
“I hope this is reassuring to many people that I’m in the majority of 96 percent of folks that will have just a mild course,” he said Tuesday.
“And I think all of us need to just have that perspective that there’s actually a lot of really very benign courses of this illness. But we can’t point out which person is going to be vulnerable and who is going to have severe, severe disease, besides folks with obvious other illnesses.”
Dr. Aks was away from work for two weeks. He came back to work at Stroger Hospital 2 1/2 weeks ago.
"People are scared. The daylights are scared out of them. People need hope right now. And, as physicians, if we can do anything, we have to give a hopeful, realistic picture."
He says he's aware of other colleagues who have gotten COVID-19 "having very minor effects."
Dr. Aks says his bout with coronavirus was "extremely stressful" for his family.
"It was probably worse for them than it was for me," he said.