BY DANI TIETZ
dani@sjodaily.com
St. Joseph native Nicole Cribbett does not mince her words when talking about COVID-19.
In fact, she calls it “the devil.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s like the flu or a cold,” Cribbett said. “At first with the symptoms you get, you might think ‘oh, I’m getting a cold.’ But once it settles in, it’s the worst of the worst.
“This demon is so unpredictable. Once you get used to dealing with one symptom you will wake up to new symptoms; even worse than the symptoms you already have. One minute you will feel ‘decent’ and thinking ‘I might be getting over this’ and then BAM you’re right back to feeling like death, and in bed.”
Cribbett knows exactly where she contracted COVID-19. An LPN (Licensed practical nurse) at a psychiatric hospital, 12 patients came down with COVID-19, two passed away. She said in the beginning, the hospital did not have enough PPE.
“I took my first COVID test April 2,” she said.
“I took it because that’s when our first two patients came back positive (well a day prior), I had been working with them,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling real great then. I was really drained and just felt like maybe I was getting the flu or something. My body got worn down. So I went ahead and tested for the first time then by my choice. I had to be off work until my results came back.”
The results came back negative on April 6. So returned to work on April 7, 8 and 9 to a group of patients who were all testing positive for COVID-19.
“On the 8th and 9th I had noticed I had headaches and my nose was extremely stuffed up, and my throat was sore and I sounded terrible,” she said. “On the 10th of April, I had left to visit a friend and came back home on the 11th. I was still really congested and sounded horrible.”
Her sense of smell had gone away, but Cribbett thought it was due to her congestion.
That is until she lost her sense of taste on Easter morning.
“I even went to the extreme to put pepper in my hand and lick it off and I couldn’t taste even a hint of anything,” she said. “I then went upstairs and sprayed perfume in my face (three or four sprays) and I couldn’t smell anything at all. It was so scary. That’s when I knew in my heart that I was COVID positive.”
By that time, the Christian County Health Department was mandating testing certain employees of the hospital; Cribbett’s name was on the list, and a test had been scheduled for April 13.
Since April 2, Cribbett has had to go through multiple COVID-19 tests to determine if the virus had passed.
“The (nasal swab) test is horrible,” she said. “It’s definitely not fun. I’ve now had to do it four different times, and I can say I had tears in my eyes driving to the number three and four tests. Lots of emotions going through your mind as you approach yet another swab jammed up your nose.
“But I know I have to do it to be cleared. So I do it and pray each time that will be the last time I have to do it. It’s uncomfortable, and it leaves the inside of your nose burning for a good hour afterwards. I’ve also noticed the last two times I got a horrible headache afterwards.”
By April 15, Cribbett’s test came back positive. She was immediately bombarded with calls.
The public health department told her that they had already contacted Fort Campbell, where she lives.
“Within 10 minutes of the health department calling me an official from Fort Campbell called me,” she said. “I’m thinking the first person was from EOC (Emergency Operations Unit). She started asking me questions about my symptoms, my address on post, how many people were in the house with me, where I had been on the last three days before my test, which gates I traveled through to get off and on post, which shoppette (gas station on post) I went into and was I alone, did I have a mask on, did I stay within six-feet of people, did I go into the commissary or Px…..on and on and on.
“Then another official called me from Fort Campbell, and I believe she was from the Post COVID-19 unit. She asked me the same questions and told me I had to be quarantined 14 days, stay in my bedroom as much as possible away from my children.”
Getting back onto base, where she lives, was quite the ordeal, though.
Cribbett was barred from returning to base after testing positive for COVID-19.
“Usually someone gets barred from (base for) getting into trouble too many times on post, or if someone has a felony, something like that,” she said. “But they barred me because I was COVID-positive. So I had to fight to get on post to get to my house. I didn’t know where they expected me to go; I’d been off work since April 9th due to this COVID.”
Eventually, Cribbett was allowed to return to her house.
But felt like she, and her family, had an “X” on their house while she was under quarantine.
Each time she left to go get retested, she had to deal with the issue of being “barred” from her home, waiting at the gate, communicating with pencil and paper while she remained secured in her vehicle.
With a 20, 16 and 13-year old in the house, Cribbett did her best to stay away.
Her children also had to be quarantined for 14 days because they were exposed.
“Basically we all just stayed in our own bedrooms as much as possible,” she said.
None of the children were infected, but great caution was taken because her middle child has Type 1 diabetes, and is at high-risk because he is immune depressed because of the diabetes.
“I had to make sure to not be around him,” she said. “I ended up giving him an N95 mask. I had an extra one that I hadn’t worn, so he had that to help protect him.”
Over the next two weeks, “the devil” took hold of Cribbett in many different ways.
She experienced headaches, sore throat, extremely stuffy nose, voice sounded horrible, loss of smell and taste, swollen lymph nodes, a cough started, loss of appetite, then body aches, joint pains, chest tightness and ringing in the ears.
“Then one morning I woke up and had horrible stomach pains and diarrhea,” she said. “I had a low grade fever the entire time and fatigue as well.”
By day 6, Cribbett thought she was on the upswing. She worked out and laid in the sun.
Then by 4 p.m. she was overtaken by fatigue, has a tightness in her chest, felt nauseous and ran a fever.
“I went and laid down; went to sleep,” she said. When I woke up on day 7 I felt even worse. My body just hurt all over. I was drained, felt like I couldn’t do anything.”
She immediately took Vitamin C, which she realized that she’d forgotten on day 6.
“I believe the Vitamin C made a difference,” she said.
Cribbett remembers the first three to seven days were bad.
“That’s when my voice sounded the worst and my nose was completely clogged up,” she said.
COVID-19 wiped her out on days 7-11.
“Those were the days I would try and then the demon would just wipe me out and I would be back in the bed.
“In those first 15 days or so, I only had 2 showers. I know the first shower I took, I had gone 5 days without one and then it was another 4 days in between the next shower.”
Fatigue is a common COVID-19 symptom, but Cribbett experienced swollen lymph nodes, which is less common.
“I have asked a few other positive patients about this and they hadn’t experienced it,” she said. “But for some reason my lymph nodes in my armpit were swollen and so extremely sore. The only thing I, and a few other nurses, could come up with is that was my body’s way of fighting off this virus.
“I do know sometimes when people have viruses or even bacterial infections their lymph nodes can swell due to their lymphatic system fighting off the virus or infection. And it’s usually the lymph nodes in your neck, armpit or groin area. Mine happened to be in my armpit.”
For the first seven or eight days, Cribbett’s appetite was minimal. She lost six-pounds throughout her infection.
Although she couldn’t taste anything until 14 or 15 days in, she forced herself to eat.
“It was more scary than anything,” she said. “And then when I would eat something it wasn’t satisfying at all. It was like I was eating air. It was the strangest thing.”
As taste began to come back, she said that the only thing that she could experience was the strongest flavor in the food, and it was overly prominent.
“I remember eating nacho cheese Doritos with some cheese dip,” she said. “I couldn’t taste the cheese dip at all, but I could taste the cheese powder on the Doritos themselves. And it was SO overpowering. Like so much that I almost couldn’t handle it.
“Same with my smell, I had poured a glass of wine one night. I caught a whiff of the wine and I stopped and bent over and stuck my nose closer to the glass and then couldn’t smell it any longer.
“It would come and go. But I was happy with that because for so many days i couldn’t smell ANYTHING at all or taste ANYTHING at all.”
Nearly 30 days later from April 2, Cribbett finally tested negative for COVID-19 on May 6. The day was filled with anxiety, though.
Her chest and throat were tight.
“I had heard from other positive COVID people how bad the anxiety can get with this virus,” she said. “I now know how bad it gets.”
Luckily, her children and two friends did not contract COVID-19 from her.
But having family and friends be there for her, even when she had to be by herself, was what helped her get through the nearly month-long illness.
“I have had so many friends and family and people I’ve never met before message me and check up on me, let me know that they were there If I needed anything,” she said. “They would send me funny videos and messages to make me laugh.
“I even had a few people that would religiously send me a funny meme every morning so I could start my day off with a laugh. I’ve had some send me cards, and funny gifts.
“I can’t begin to thank all these people enough for what they have done for me during this time. Without these friends and family and now new friends I don’t know what I would have done, it definitely would have been worse for me!”
Cribbett said that she would consider being part of studies on COVID-19 because she wants to see if COVID-19 has done any permanent damage to her body.
“It’s real! It’s horrible! And it’s very serious!” she said. “I know some people that haven’t had it, say they aren’t worried and they think everyone is overreacting to it. I was even thinking ‘ahh, it’s just another flu’ until I got it.
Cribbett is no stranger to physically and mentally taxing herself. She said she loves to test her body to see how much it can endure.
A mother of four, Cribbett decided to have a completely natural childbirth with her youngest two, just to see how painful it was, and if she could handle it. Living in Oklahoma, she trained for her first half-marathon by waiting for the midday heat to reach 102-104 degrees, leave her water in the car, then listen to the same song for 8 to 11 miles just to make herself mentally tougher.
Cribbett is also known to get an entire tattoo in eight hours, whereas others might break it up into two-hour segments. She also likes to go on 10-mile ruck marches with a 35-lbs strapped to her back.
“I like to see how much I can handle mentally and physically and I can tell you, I don’t want to ever have to try to handle this COVID -19 demon again,” she said. “It’s the hardest “test” I’ve ever had to endure physically and even more so emotionally/mentally. It almost broke me.”
