th<\/sup>. Walck would prefer not to publicize his work place but says it employs many people who travel. Still he doesn\u2019t recall being exposed to anyone with the virus or to someone who had been to an affected area. That Friday, he didn\u2019t feel good but kept working. By Saturday, he could barely move. \u201cI was pinned to the wall with a crushing sensation in my chest.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Walck stayed put in his home (his wife was away) until Monday, when his flu-like symptoms, including sweating and a fever, prompted him to visit Highland Family Physicians in Honesdale, a Wayne Memorial Community Health Center. He tested negative for influenza and the doctor gave him Zofran, a drug for nausea and vomiting. \u201cI couldn\u2019t really eat. I lost 13 pounds,\u201d says Walck, recalling the early days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 20th<\/sup>, his wife insisted he go to the Emergency Department, where he tested positive for COVID-19. He was admitted to Wayne Memorial Hospital\u2019s containment unit constructed specifically for novel coronavirus patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt one point they wanted to put me on a ventilator, but I resisted,\u201d says Walck, \u201cand they said \u2018well you don\u2019t have a lot of time,\u2019 meaning I needed more oxygen right then and there.\u201d Walck knew a ventilator required intubation, an invasive procedure which he would prefer not to go through. So, instead of the ventilator, Walck was put on an optiflow machine, a non-invasive device which delivers warm, humidified air\/oxygen through a patient\u2019s nose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walck survived his pneumonia, and on March 29th<\/sup> he was discharged with \u201c17 different medications.\u201d He hoped for the best but he felt \u201cstill shaky.\u201d His only underlying issue was high blood pressure, and within a few days he had that \u201csledgehammer\u201d feeling again and his blood pressure spiked to 188\/117 (according to the American Heart Association, blood pressure should be under 140\/90). He was re-admitted to Wayne Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe team at Wayne Memorial\u2014 Dr. McVeigh, the hospitalists and the nurses\u2014they were phenomenal,\u201d says Walck, \u201cthey helped me recover from this with all they had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walck adds that his wife and 17-year-old son both also tested positive for COVID-19, but neither had serious symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did he ever think maybe this was it? \u201cOh, yeah,\u201d says Walck, \u201cI definitely cut some deals with the \u2018Big Guy\u2019 while I was in the hospital, and now it\u2019s pay-back time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sean McVeigh, MD, pulmonologist, says, \u201cScott Walck is one of the many survivors of this virus. While we certainly cannot discount the many people who have lost their lives, by far we have seen more survivors at Wayne Memorial Hospital, and his outlook is good.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was really a life-changing event for me,\u201d says Walck, \u201cand maybe with my plasma donation, I can help someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, as Scott Walck recovers from COVID-19 at his home in Lake Ariel, he\u2019s thinking of donating his blood plasma to other victims. Researchers say… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,6,9],"tags":[135],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-health","category-slider","tag-wayne-memorial-hospital"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}