Lake County COVID survivor: ‘Wouldn’t wish it on anybody’

Polson’s Jason Burrough was “down for the count” during his July experience with COVID-19.

“I lay on my back for four days,” he said.

Jason contracted the virus during the time when Lake County spiked to 80 active cases. Many of those cases were “community spread,” which means the source of infection was not specifically known. He is glad he and his wife are now part of the 160-plus who count as recovered.

Jason’s wife, Tambi, contracted the virus first.

“She was sick for a day, and then she was back to working out,” he says.

Jason was at bible camp with several students when he became ill. He had driven separately from the student bus, as he carried sound and tech equipment.

“I wore my mask, I socially distanced at youth camp,” he said.

Jason said he felt fine the first few days.

“All of a sudden Thursday morning, I wake up and I go to this prayer, away from everybody doing the sound system, and I have my mask on,” he said. “I got back to my dorm, and I lay down, and could not get up. Every bit of energy I had before I lay down was zapped. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was slurring my words.”

Jason says he had no fever at first but had body aches and “could barely move.”

After sleeping a bit, he decided to drive himself home.

“That was a mistake. I almost wrecked my truck because I was so out of it.”

On the way he stopped for food and realized he had lost his sense of taste and smell when he couldn’t even taste or feel hot Buffalo sauce.

The next day, he went to the drive-thru COVID testing site at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Polson.

“Those guys are awesome. They are just super nice people and they treated us very well.” The tests hurt, he admits, as they probe the upper nasal cavity.

“It makes a grown man cry.”

Because of his diabetes, Jason was considered at high risk, and this may be why his symptoms were worse than his wife’s. His children showed no symptoms.

Jason’s entire family isolated together for two weeks.

“It’s hard when you have two 4-year-olds and two teenagers, and they are having their summer stripped away from them,” he said.

But community members were very helpful, dropping off food and fetching things they needed from the store. Jason’s symptoms lasted four or five days, he said.

“After that I felt great, got back into my workouts, and everything.”

He resumed playing softball his first week after coming out of isolation, wearing a mask to make others feel comfortable.

“I got a hit and ran to first base and could not breathe,” Jason said.

He could not catch his breath for several innings, partly because of the disease, and possibly partly due to the mask, he said.

He now has a sports gaiter that is easier to breathe through.

In the middle of their quarantine, Centers for Disease Control changed the guidelines for coming out of it. Recommendations had been that a person had to have two non-positive results to come out of quarantine.

But now, Jason said “after 14 days they say you are not communicable anymore, even

though you could still test positive for the virus in your system for the next three months.”

“Other than my wife, I can’t trace where I got it from,” Jason said. “We tried to trace who had it that maybe didn’t know about it.”

None of the students in the bible camp got COVID that he knows.

“I hope it stopped with me.”

Jason said he “wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” because of the miserable symptoms, and also because it makes others around you nervous. He says people move slowly away from you, with “that fear, that angst when you find out someone has it - even if somebody sneezes at the store you’re in.”

Jason’s biggest fear now is “thinking everything is OK, and it’s still hanging around, and something comes up and I’m in trouble again.”

But for now, he feels great, and is excited that football practice is resuming at Polson High School, where he is coaches the offensive line. Practices will keep kids in groups that don’t mix whole team together, in an attempt at social distancing to prevent virus spread.

“It’s more work but it is worth it to help give these kids a sense of normalcy,“ he said. “A lot of these kids are social beings. They need that interaction.”

He says the same thing for church. “It’s part of our faith.”