https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/my-severe-covid-19-felt-like-dying-in-solitary-confinement/"Covid-19 is teaching everyone in medicine lessons about health care and public health. Mine have been up close, personal, and frightening.
One day I was a healthy 44-year-old doctor, CEO of a health care company, and a triathlete who was prepared to do another triathlon. Then I was a Covid-19 patient a few shallow breaths away from being put on a ventilator. A nurse saved me from that fate.
A journey that made me ponder new questions and opened my eyes to a new sense of purpose and perspective started innocuously enough. The soreness and aches began on a Monday night; a fever followed. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling awful. I got tested and it was official — I was one of the thousands of new Covid-19 patients that day.
By Friday, I was having trouble taking deep breaths. My pulse oximeter showed 95%. Not bad, but not normal for me — that would have been 99% to 100%. Over the next two days, things got worse.
Sunday morning, six days after first feeling sick, I walked to the bathroom and felt a new sensation: I was winded and light-headed. My oxygen level was still 97%, but I was breathing much faster. As I sat on the edge of the bathtub, my respiratory rate was 18 breaths per minute (50% higher than usual) and my heart rate was 85 beats per minute (up from my baseline of 50)."
Continue this intense saga here:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/my-severe-covid-19-felt-like-dying-in-solitary-confinement/_________________________________
[edit add on 6-10-21] If you have been vaccinated your blood cannot be used for convalescent plasma
58:45 mark in this video
https://thehighwire.com/videos/risky-business/