‘The worst was the body aches’: Myrtle Beach fashion blogger shares COVID-19 experience
Erica Davis did not suspect she had COVID-19 after realizing one afternoon she had a fever.
Her day began with a routine trip to a Myrtle Beach area gym, where she felt overheated, she said.
Davis, a Myrtle Beach mortgage lender and fashion blogger, did not have any upper respiratory problems when she first began having coronavirus symptoms. At the end of last week, she tested for COVID-19 and she received positive results Tuesday.
“I was a little anxious of course, we have two kids,” she said of the time she waited for her results. Davis’ husband has been tested and is awaiting his results, she said, and their children, ages 9 and 11, have had no symptoms. The family plans to quarantine for 14 days.
She did a self-administered nasal test at CVS Pharmacy.
“It’s not fun, it’s definitely uncomfortable,” Davis said. “You have to administer the test yourself, which, again, is very uncomfortable. You take a cotton swab and literally insert it as high as you possibly can in your nasal passage - almost to the point where it’ll bring on a coughing sensation or gagging.”
Davis said other than having a low-grade fever, with it spiking one day, and body aches, she did not experience symptoms like loss of taste or smell or coughing.
“The worst was the body aches,” Davis said.
Cases across Horry County have climbed higher than 1,400 as of Thursday, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
After more than a week of symptoms, Davis said she is recovering and feeling better. She has been able to work from home for the company she and her husband run together, Guild Mortgage, and maintain her blog and Instagram, The Stylish Lender.
Davis said for anyone who has not experienced the coronavirus, she encourages them not to panic if they begin having symptoms and to get tested to help protect others. But she said she did have to do independent research on how to recover after receiving positive results because she was simply just told she had the virus.
“When all of this was first discovered ... so much on the news was a death sentence or at the very least you’re hospitalized,” she said. “That’s not the case for everyone, and thankfully, I was one of the more milder cases.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 11:11 AM.
