Who doesn’t have the coronavirus blues lately?
And frankly, I’m not sure which is worse; worrying if you get it that it may be your last hurrah, watching the mainstream media and the Kansas City Star try and turn everything into a politicized news nightmare.or you know, actually getting it.
Westport sparkplug Bill Nigro found out the hard way.
Two weeks back on a Sunday night, what began as something approaching a good, old fashioned flu, turned into a full blown corona storm that made a true believer out of the 65 year-old Kansas City entertainment and restaurant czar.
Two weeks later after having a swab jammed up his nose so far he could almost feel is brain, Nigro has been diagnosed, gone to heck in a hand basket, lived to tell the story and is now waiting out a two week post virus quarantine, and hoping he’s seen the last of it.
“I feel incredibly better and I haven’t had a fever since a week ago Sunday,” Nigro says. “And I’m starting to gain weight again. I went from almost 160 pounds down to 140 pounds in less than a week – that’s a lot of weight.
“Now I’m just down to being sick in the head. But I was in pretty peak shape and I think that helped me immensely because I have type two diabetes.”
How bad was it?
“Well, I got pretty darn sick,” Nigro says. “Especially losing all that weight, because I couldn’t hold anything down. At least it didn’t get into my lungs.”
Other than a 102 degree fever, hours on end riding the porcelain, and a killer headache, the worst aspect of Nigro’s coronavirus bout entailed him spending hours in the bathroom, chugging glass after glass of water, as that was the only thing he could halfway hold down.
And let the record show that Nigro laid pretty darn low, kept his distance and had minimal contact with other people, even as he continued to operate his storage business in Westport. Plus he washed and disinfected his hands repeatedly.
So how did Wild Bill catch the Big C?
“I think I got it at the gas station,” Nigro says. “Because I was so careful, and I hadn’t been to a store or anywhere else.
“And I wasn’t really around anybody else much at all – some UPS and Fed X drivers – but I never shook their hands and washed my hands after I handled any boxes.”
If Nigro had a do-over.
“You know, I should have just taken a paper towel and put it over the gas pump,” he says.
And while time heals all wounds – kinda, sorta – those awful details still remain vivid.
“I had a horrible headache and was extremely tired,” Nigro says. “At least now I can worry about it a lot less. I mean, the mental screwing is over, but I’m still going to be very careful and wear a mask anywhere I go. Because I don’t want anybody else to have to go through what I went through.”
Amen and congrats, Brutha Bill.