Like many years prior, avid runner Annette Gerosa participated in the Los Angeles Marathon this past March. Two weeks later, the registered nurse says she was feeling a great sense of fatigue.

“I was [feverish]. I did have a low-grade fever of 101 degrees, and I had chest discomfort, chest pain, with a dry hacking cough,” she remembered. “Immediately, I had the onset of the symptoms of COVID.”

She consulted a physician through a telemedicine appointment and was instructed to isolate. Because of the shortage of tests at the time, she was told to seek treatment only if she became short of breath.

Her son was home from college, and he had been taking care of her when they decided to head to the hospital.

“I just felt so sorry for saying goodbye to him. I felt like he might have thought he failed me in taking care of me,” she said.

Her husband drove her to the emergency room, where he dropped her off curbside. Knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to come in with her, she said a “heart-wrenching” goodbye to him.

“I just wanted him to know how grateful I was that he provided such a great life [for me],” she said. “But to have those thoughts flashing in your mind, actually thanking somebody for giving you a good life and saying goodbye was pretty heart-wrenching.”

Annette has since been discharged and is doing well, but while she was in the hospital, she wasn’t sure if she would make it out.

“It was horrifying to be gasping for air,” she said. “It was terrifying thinking of two pathways you might be choosing on, where death was imminent. It sounds dramatic, but honestly, that happened. Something my son said that helped me persevere was, ‘Mom, the only way out is through.’”

She did her best to push through and stay strong.

“I think a lot of my marathon training and running helped me,” she said. “When [someone] runs a marathon, there's something called the wall — you hit the wall — and the wall is mile twenty. I just felt like on my worst days there, I just had to persevere, that I had hit the wall. I was on mile twenty. That the finish line was coming.”

She knows reopening society is inevitable and is asking people to do one thing.

“How I would practice moving forward is act as if you have coronavirus, and everybody else has coronavirus,” she said.

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