Lake County Mother Of 3 Describes Experience Of Contracting Coronavirus
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (CBS) -- A mother of three was one of the first people diagnosed with COVID-19 in Lake County.
After several days in the hospital, Terri Chaseley was back home in Highland Park on Tuesday, and she has a new warning for us all.
Chaseley told CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot she was at the gym working out, when all of a sudden, her lungs started burning.
Le Mignot: "Describe to me what that pain felt like."
Chaseley: "Well, it felt like I was breathing in shards of glass. It was burning and my chest was very tight."
Le Mignot: "Terri, when you went to the emergency room, the CT scan showed that you had double viral pneumonia?"
Chaseley: "Yes. It was very scary. The ER doctor seemed extremely concerned. She felt it was consistent with what she had heard about other physicians seeing with COVID patients, and it was just really important that a CT scan was done since I had had two regular chest X-rays that were negative."
Le Mignot: "One thing you said you really wanted to share and get across is how serious you feel about the social isolation."
Chaseley: "Every single person that's exposed to another person, can infect three to four or more people without knowing, and I really wish that we were actually for two or three weeks on a complete national lockdown. I think that piece-mealing it state by state is really only doing it halfway. It's not going to have the full impact that we need it to have, and I think people are going to die because of it."
Chaseley said it is believed she was infected with COVID-19 while attending a fundraiser. Three other people at the event tested positive for the virus.
Many at the event travel for work.
Chaseley also said she lost her sense of smell and taste shortly after getting sick - symptoms that hadn't previously been associated with COVID-19.
But just a couple days ago, professional organizations representing ear, nose, and throat specialists started citing anecdotal evidence of that in some COVID-19 patients.
