For the majority of the pandemic, my wife and I have been wearing masks and observing all CDC recommendations.

I am a retired Paramedic that had been COVID-19 free up until Nov. 27th when I felt a dry cough come on.

I suffered immensely with coughing and wheezing the first two weekends, I honestly thought I was going to die

First let me say I was fully vaccinated as soon as possible because I have asthma and I am 63.

I suffer from shortness of breath, no taste, and no smell. I still have some cough and my voice hasn’t completely come back.

In February, my husband, two children, and I got COVID.

Over the course of this, I have had four friends and one cousin die from COVID. I don’t want to see any more friends or family die, and I certainly do not want to catch it again.

I have always considered myself healthy and hearty. When I heard about COVID, I figured if I got it, I would be asymptomatic and unaffected. I was 38 when I tested positive for COVID in early November 2020, and I was wrong about how it would go.

When I got COVID-19 in October 2020, I was in a skilled nursing facility recovering from an injury that was almost a year old.

I was hospitalized for 30 days and spent 11 days on a ventilator. I suffered a retroperitoneal hemorrhage and a plexopathy that impeded my left femoral nerve and left my left leg pretty much paralyzed.