Thursday, March 28, 2024
 
Click HERE to sign up to receive Eye On Sun Valley's Daily News Email
 
‘Every Day is a New Day with Coronavirus’
Loading
   
Monday, April 6, 2020
 

STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Muffy Ritz was stirring ground beef in a skillet for a dish she calls Joe’s Special when she realized she couldn’t smell the spices she was sprinkling on it.

It was March 17—St. Patrick’s Day. And soon her loss of taste and smell would be coupled with extreme fatigue, a gunky cough. diarrhea and vomiting.

With that she became one of the more than 80 percent of those infected with coronavirus who are said to have mild to moderate symptoms.

“I didn’t think too much about it, at first,” she said. “I continued to work out. I climbed Baldy and skied down the next day. And on the 19th and 20th I skied two laps at Prairie Creek and Billy’s Bridge. Fortunately, while I was with friends, I kept my distance because I felt something was wrong.”

As her symptoms became worse, Ritz called a doctor friend and asked him whether her loss of taste and smell might be connected to coronavirus. But, at that time, he had heard nothing about the telltale symptoms that would come to be identified as anosmia.

She sequestered herself at home, so fatigued that she couldn’t do any exercise except for squats and ab work using a wheel roller.

On March 23 she went to get tested but was told her symptoms weren’t dire enough to warrant a test.

“I thought, ‘That’s good. At least my symptoms are not dire,’ ” she said.

Without the ability to smell or taste food, she pared her eating to cold cereal, which she enjoyed because of the crunch, and an occasional egg with spinach. What was the sense in eating if you couldn’t enjoy it, she reasoned.

And she lost 10 pounds.

“I’m a coffeeholic and I couldn’t tell whether I was drinking coffee or water,” she said. “And I’m a foodie so this has been really hard!”

About a week after she came down with symptoms, Ritz started to feel better—good enough to walk around the base of Dollar Mountain with a friend who had also had the virus.

“Two sickies out there talking about what it was like and how crummy it was,” she recounted.

Then on March 31 the virus revisited with a vengeance.

She woke up drenched in sweat and with the worst headache she’d ever had.

“I don’t get headaches often and this was six hours of gripping headache that enveloped my entire head as if I had a clamp on it,” she recounted. “I couldn’t do anything to alleviate it. Concentrating, texting, reading emails really hurt. And every 10 minutes for an hour I threw up.”

Ritz couldn’t stop coughing and she was wracked with chills. She put on an expedition down jacket, a wool stocking hat, gloves and a buff. But she couldn’t get warm.

She crawled into bed exhausted. And a short time later--at 5:52 p.m.—her Ketchum house began shaking as a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck west of Stanley.

“I thought: Mother Nature is trying to kill us either way. What will be next? Locusts?”

As bad as she felt, however, she couldn’t resist chuckling.

“Blaine County was already the worst place in the nation for coronavirus,” she said, referring to reports that the county had more cases per capita than even hard-hit New York and Italy. “And now we were the epicenter for a major earthquake.”

The next day Ritz decided she’d better get tested. Once again, she was turned away. You’re already on the tail end, she was told. It won’t do any good to be tested at this point.

“I have at least eight friends who have had similar symptoms with the chills, no taste or smell, no energy. And none of them have been tested. You wonder how many people in this valley have had this,” she said.

Wrung out like a dish rag, Ritz couldn’t even drag herself out of the house to take her dog for a walk. She turned into a couch potato, comforted by her dog Petey, who put her head in Ritz’s lap looking at her quizzically with her big brown eyes when Ritz groaned or moaned.

She conserved her energy to watch the Academy Awards, “Nurse Jackie” and news about the coronavirus on TV. She worked puzzles and did a little light reading when normally she would have been in the kitchen whipping out batches of chocolate chip cookies.

“And I was a good daughter. I called my mother, who’s 90, every day. She keeps saying, ‘I’m shut down. I can’t even walk outside my home,’” Ritz related.

Ritz doesn’t know where she might have been infected. She flew back from visiting her mother and brother in Minnesota on March 9 so she could have picked it up on the airplane, she figures. She might have picked it up at a gathering in the Wood River Valley after she got back. She might have picked it up sharing a latte with straws.

Fortunately, she and others decided to cancel the annual Vamps and Dons season-ending ski party at Galena Lodge on March 14. It was one of the first events in the valley to be cancelled. Had it gone on, many more could have been infected since Ritz and others may already have unknowingly been carrying the virus.

“I came down with my symptoms the day after I did a hard workout double poling from SNRA to Baker Creek, then skating back without poles for the Vamps Challenge,” she said. “And another friend came down with symptoms after she pushed her body too hard. So, it’s possible we might have let our immunity down.”

Now, three weeks after she first felt sick, Ritz is beginning to feel as if she’s emerging from the rabbit hole. She’s not quite as weak. She’s not coughing as much. And she was able to take her dog out on a walk around the block on Friday.

“I’m really fortunate because I almost died of pneumonia when I was 6 and I get bronchitis fairly regularly. So, I feel lucky after seeing all those people in New York dying and on ventilators. It breaks my heart.”

But she still can’t taste or smell.

“I dream about food. As soon as I get my senses back, I want a big greasy hamburger with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, ketchup and mustard. And a big latte.”

Ritz says she now tells everyone that the loss of smell without a stuffy nose is a clue, a canary in the coal mine.

“And if you get this disease, you have to baby yourself. Don’t force yourself to get outside and try to exercise. My brain was telling me I needed to exercise but my body was saying, ‘Stay in.’ Don’t try to do anything that might compromise your health. You’ve got the rest of your life to get back in shape. Just get well first.”

Ritz added that everybody she’s talked with has different symptoms.

“Everybody’s body is different. Not one person can say, ‘This is what you’re ’s going to feel’ because all of us have had different symptoms. Every day is a new day with coronavirus. You don’t know what it’s going to throw at you.”

 She does know this, though:

“I will come out of this appreciating my food and my espresso and my friends more than ever.”

THE JELLYBEAN TEST:

Of course, the loss of smell has some benefits as people hunker down during the pandemic, especially in small apartments where garbage is piling up or where toddlers are making messes.

The director of the Center for Smell and Taste at the University of Florida told CNN that you can test your sense of smell with the jellybean test.

Hold your nose tightly with the other and begin chewing on a jelly bean. While chewing, release your nose. If you have sense of smell you’ll be able to tell what flavor the jelly bean is.

Of course, the cold or flu can temporarily impact smell and taste when swelling in the nose prevents smell particles from getting up to the top where the olfactory nerve is.

Those with nasal polyps, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease and head trauma may have impaired smell. And some medications, chemotherapy and radiation therapy can disrupt taste.

But, if you lose your sense of smell and taste quickly, self-isolate for at least 14 days so you don’t spread the virus to others.

~  Today's Topics ~


Lou Whittaker Leaves Behind a Legacy of Mountaineering and Storytelling

Free Range Poetry Society to Hold Second Gathering Tonight

Easter Bunny to Begin Hopping Friday
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Website problems? Contact:
Michael Hobbs
General Manager /Webmaster
Mike@EyeOnSunValley.com
 
Got a story? Contact:
Karen Bossick
Editor in Chief
(208) 578-2111
Karen@EyeOnSunValley.com
 
 
Advertising /Marketing /Public Relations
Leisa Hollister
Chief Marketing Officer
(208) 450-9993
leisahollister@gmail.com
 
Brandi Huizar
Account Executive
(208) 329-2050
brandi@eyeonsunvalley.com
 
 
ABOUT US
EyeOnSunValley.com is the largest online daily news media service in The Wood River Valley, publishing 7 days a week. Our website publication features current news articles, feature stories, local sports articles and video content articles. The Eye On Sun Valley Show is a weekly primetime television show focusing on highlighted news stories of the week airing Monday-Sunday, COX Channel 13. See our interactive Kiosks around town throughout the Wood River Valley!
 
info@eyeonsunvalley.com      Press Releases only
 
P: 208.720.8212
P.O. Box 1453 Ketchum, ID  83340
LOGIN

© Copyright 2023 Eye on Sun Valley