Cam Inman, the Bay Area News Group’s 49ers beat reporter, made the trip to New Orleans last week to cover the team play the Saints on Nov. 15, 2020. It was the 49ers’ first game this season that included some fans and was Inman’s first road game since he battled his own coronavirus infection earlier this fall. (Photo courtesy of Mayra Gomez)
Day 4 of my COVID-19 battle is when my chest tightened, as if by a woodshop vice.
Sleeping more than a couple hours wasn’t possible. Turning on my side wasn’t working. This wasn’t going well.
The pain came at different times, in random body parts as the coronavirus raged. My mind drifted from mortality to family and even football.
Continuing to report on the 49ers and NFL offered a much-needed distraction, to an extent, from the pain, the headaches, the fear of infecting others.
I endured our global nightmare last month. So did my wife. We got it from a friend who unwittingly brought COVID with her on a surprise visit from out of state. All of us are on the mend, and no close contacts got it.
This, here, is not to lecture you like a health or government official. This is not to hype you up with a “Crush The Virus!” T-shirt slogan.
Sharing my experiences – from sickness to recovery – hopefully will help those curious about COVID-19, for those weighing high-risk contacts this Thanksgiving, and for those who wonder just how the NFL can pull off a non-bubble season in a pandemic.
As the NFL’s Thanksgiving tripleheader plays on your wall-mounted televisions, it is both dumbfounding and commendable that this super-strange season has reached Week 11 of 17.
Cases are on the rise. Every team is in “Intensive Protocol” to thwart COVID-19 outbreaks. Of course, no one wants it. But nearly 100 players and 175 team personnel have tested positive since August, and the 49ers just put a season-high seven players on the NFL’s COVID-19 reserve list during this past week’s bye.
What did COVID-19 feel like?
Every player’s addition to the NFL’s COVID-19 reserve list is an impersonal transaction. Then come reporters’ tweets: “(Player A) is going on the reserve/COVID list. He will miss practice time but should be fine for the next game.”
Sure about that? That’s stupidly presumptuous about a mysterious illness that, outside of the NFL’s macho world, has been deadly to some, dismissed by others.
I detested seeing any kind of numbers, statistics or blanket statements as my COVID-19 symptoms first struck. Survival rates and infections per county meant nothing as I braced for my body’s reaction.
A day after I sat in the Levi’s Stadium press box and covered the 49ers’ upset loss to Philadelphia on Oct. 4, my wife tested positive for COVID-19. I immediately alerted my colleagues and the 49ers, who diligently reviewed in-house video and confirmed I abided by mask-wearing and social-distancing protocol.
I successfully avoided what the county deemed high-risk contact: a 15-minute conversation.
There is no more press box banter, just plexiglass dividers between seats every 6 feet.
After taking a drive-thru nasal swab test at my local clinic that Monday, I went on a 6-mile run in the Pleasanton hills, feeling healthy and free.
Later, a slight cough developed. The next day, a headache set in so severe that it felt like the burning sun sat atop my shoulders. I went to bed with a fever of 100.2, only to awaken in sweat at midnight.
My test came back positive, as if my body aches, my lack of appetite and my overall lethargy hadn’t already confirmed that I had contracted the virus. My oxygen levels remained between the 95-100 strike zone on a device my mother promptly ordered me by mail.
As advertised, COVID-19 made its way into my chest, like a boxer punching inside me at my ribs.
Googling a timeline of symptoms made matters worse. Case studies in China seemed, well, distant. An ICU visit, it said, was typical in a couple days. Yikes. No way.
My father died of a lung disease when I was 12. He was 55. I’ve exercised routinely to outlast that 55-mile marker.
I could see why COVID-19 can be the end game for some. It’s especially scary when your two youngest kids are down the hall (avoiding the virus, thankfully) and the oldest is wanting to rush home from college.
My wife shared some of my symptoms. Our cases were not mirror images. She temporarily lost her sense of smell; I did not. She ached longer than me. We all are built differently, and this virus seems to prey on that.
What was recovery like?
Support poured in from family and friends. Meals were dropped at our doorstep. Every text or tweet meant a lot, as every bit of encouragement countered every minute of anxiety.
My magic elixir, as my doctor advised, was to rest and hydrate. There was no wonder drug, just vitamins (zinc and D3), a couple Tylenol, and lots of V8 and Gatorade, two cases of which were shipped to me from a long-time colleague inside the 49ers.
Once cleared out of 10-day isolation by a county health official, a 3-mile walk became the daily norm. A month later, I’m back running that route and then some.
But in between the bad and good were a couple weeks of intense headaches, sinus pain, scary coughs and skin rashes.
What is it like with antibodies?
My wife and I tested positive for antibodies. They were hard-earned. They are not taken for granted, nor considered a foolproof barrier to re-infection until proven so.
That status, however, cleared my way to attend the 49ers’ game at New Orleans. After 20 years covering NFL games on the road, this would be a unique experience, to the most unique city in America.
I interviewed more than 20 fans, some partying away on Bourbon Street and some hunkered down on quiet streets with their spouse or close friend. All felt they were safe. None said so convincingly, and some either disregarded the city’s mask ordinance or found ways to skirt it.
“I’m not concerned,” one 49ers fan from Louisiana said. “Why not? I resort to a Higher Power, you know. I’m just going by the rules so I can get my drinks and eats.”
With only 6,000 people allowed to attend the game, the 74,000-seat Superdome looked barren. The 5,979 in attendance were required to wear masks and sit several rows apart.
As free-spirited as New Orleans can be, its bars and liquor stores close at 11 p.m., a stark contrast to the all-hours debauchery of its past. The locals (“townies”) make sure to wear masks. The Mardi Gras parades in February already are canceled.
A ghost-town aura comes with this version of New Orleans. A friend who works at the local paper told me his dad died from COVID-19 this year, and my waitress at La Petite Grocery told me she still has a partially collapsed lung as we compared post-COVID stories.
With seven 49ers going on COVID-19 reserve after the game, debates should intensify whether this season is worth continuing. That call is above my pay grade. My personal experience likely impacts my objectivity. I’m increasingly concerned about players’ welfare.
I’m not rooting to shut the season down. That fate will take care of itself if more and more players are flagged for potential exposure, and it’s trending that way.
The gravity of this pandemic has grown in 10 months. Back then, when the 49ers were in Miami preparing for the Super Bowl and the coronavirus was little more than a word to most of us, an international reporter asked 49ers star Nick Bosa to give a public-service announcement about it.
Bosa looked into a camera and, like any good doctor, wisely advised to “wash your hands and stay clean, because there is a virus going around.”
The virus is still around us, just not inside me anymore. Any lingering effects are almost gone, and I know how fortunate I am.
My gratitude for health and family is abundant this Thanksgiving. It coincides with my 49th birthday.
Yep, I’m a healthy 49er, in this of all years.
