It started out as a tickle in his throat before bed, but by the next morning, it felt like the worst flu ever.
And by the time Kevin Harris was admitted to a hospital in Ohio five days later, he thought he was suffocating.
The doctors at St. Joseph Hospital in Warren were certain Harris, 55, had pneumonia — but three days later, they had the real diagnosis: coronavirus.
One of the doctors had tears in his eyes when Harris asked if he would live. Another doctor just shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“They told me they didn’t have a cure,” Harris told The Post from his hospital room, where he was still hooked up to oxygen Tuesday night. “I just wanted them to tell me if I’m going to live or die.”
Harris, a father of four children with three grandchildren, believes he was exposed to the coronavirus at another hospital when he went in for an appointment that wound up being canceled.
Within a couple of days, he said, he felt like he couldn’t clear his throat. He couldn’t stop coughing. By the next day, he had a fever and headaches. But the worst part was the body aches.
On a scale of 1 to 10, he said, the pain was 15.
“The pain is off the charts. Everything hurts, nose, toes and ears,” said Harris. “I was like one big ball of pain.”
He said he cried “like a little girl” when he moved from his bed to a nearby chair.
Three days after his first symptoms, he said, his fever had begun to wane, and it seemed like he might get better — but then it returned with a vengeance, and he felt like he was choking every time he breathed.
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