As cases of COVID-19 begin to spike in Saskatchewan, Tonya Olson knows exactly what that means. The Yorkton resident is a survivor of COVID-19, and she is imploring people to take the virus seriously so they do not have to go through what she did.
She describes the experience as hell, as she got increasingly worse after contracting the disease. It got so bad that her family was preparing for her death, because they did not believe she would make it through the disease.
“I eventually just figured I was going to be done here. My husband thought I was going to die, and my son actually cried because he thought I was going to pass away as well. But I turned a corner.”
She had many of the symptoms of the virus. She wasn’t able to smell strong scents like Vicks VapoRub, she couldn’t drink because all water tasted like salt water. She was vomiting, sweating, had a headache that she describes as migraine-level for several days.
One of the challenges was getting the chance to see someone at the hospital, Olson said, and it took her weeks before she was able to talk to someone, she said. While she said the nurse practitioner was great, she was severely dehydrated by the time she got help, and she wishes she would have been in the hospital earlier because she had severe symptoms.
Olson is still recovering, fighting infections that she contracted due to a weakened immune system, but believes she’s finally on the road to recovery after months.
Olson made a social media post about her experience, and said she was inspired to do so because she finds that people are in denial about the disease and the damage it can do to people.
“In Yorkton especially, nobody is willing to admit they have COVID-19. A lot of people are being treated badly, like pariahs. I had actually been treated badly by a few people.”
The people who frustrate her most of all are the ones who are in denial that the virus exists at all, and she said she still sees their posts on social media. She said that she has a family member who is aggressively anti-mask and refuses to go anywhere that requires them to wear a mask, and she’s frustrated that they are denying that her experience was real.
“It’s real, I thought I was going to die in my own home.”
While there is a perception that the disease only has serious side effects for the elderly, Olson is in her 30s, and she wants people to know that it’s a disease everyone wants to avoid, and that everyone needs to take the steps they can to prevent the spread.
While Olson did take precautions and maintained social distance, she doesn’t know exactly where she contracted the virus. She believes that the most likely scenario is that she contracted it from a customer at work.
“Stay safe and be careful, I hope nobody else gets it.”
