LONDON, ONT -- Michael Loiselle says he hasn’t been sick in 20 years, but now he finds himself fighting COVID-19 from a hospital bed and the 37-year-old has a message for all of us.
“With anyone out there who thinks that they’re invincible, think differently,” says Loiselle while trying not to cough.
The London, Ont. business owner never thought this would happen to him.
“It doesn’t discriminate, at all, you can be two years old, you can be 70 years old,” he says.
Loiselle was in Michigan and Ohio last week for business. It was Saturday when he began to feel cold and flu-like symptoms.
“I just thought it was lack of sleep, and the waking up in the middle of night, and from head to toe just cold and hot sweats, and then all of a sudden dry cough,” says Loiselle.
By Wednesday he was being rushed by paramedics to University Hospital in London after speaking to a telehealth nurse.
“She asked me ‘Is anywhere on your body numb?’ and I said 'My left arm, my face, and my feet are tingling right now.' Right away she said 'We are sending an ambulance.'”
Loiselle says his COVID-19 test came back positive Thursday.
He is now in a single hospital room in isolation suffering from a high fever, chest pains, a bad cough, and delusions.
“It is a struggle to talk, every time I cough, it feels like from the top of my head pretty much right down to bottom of my back it feels like there’s a million needles just stabbing me.”
Loiselle doesn’t know how long he will have to be in hospital, or even if the treatments are helping. He just wants people to know that this can affect anyone and that we all have to take measures to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
“This is real, it hurts, I’m 37 and I never thought in a million years, like I told you already I haven’t been sick in 20 years, so when I got this I didn’t think it could happen to me, at all.”
