Chicago Woman Finds She Still Has COVID-19 After Clean Bill Of Health

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Chicago woman who thought she had beaten COVID-19, only to be told the virus was still infecting her body, is sharing her experience as a cautionary tale.

A day after going to a drive up COVID-19 testing site attorney Amy Episcope was upset to learn she had COVID-19.

"It's scary," she said. "I knew it was very life threatening."

Initially she was extremely ill.

"I would kind of explain it like a ping pong ball going through your body," she said. "You never know what's going to happen next."

Then she suddenly felt better, and after eight days with no fever and symptoms, healthcare workers said she could leave her house by April 7.

Episcope, who is a lawyer for the Cook County Public Defender's Office, did go out for essentials but refrained from using the public elevator and always wore a mask. But she still felt fatigue, so her doctor decided to send a vial of her blood to California for a followup test.

The result was frustrating.

"My infection was still highly active, and I was highly contagious," she said.

Her doctor then told her she had to quarantine for another three weeks. Episcope is telling her story because she fears what would have happened if she hadn't paid for that extra test.

"I'm extremely concerned about the people that I could unknowingly be infecting relying on the information that I was allowed to go outside," Episcope said.

Now she has purchased a hazmat suit, so she can leave her apartment to take another test. That way she'll find out if the virus is still in her body or if she can safely can meet with friends and loved ones.

Episcope said she could have infected her father, and that, she said, is the scariest part of her ordeal.

She said the takeaway is there is no magic number when it comes to the number of days needed to recover from this potentially deadly virus.