{"id":88670,"date":"2020-05-07T22:06:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T04:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-high-school-english-teacher-pretty-sure-shes-beaten-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2020-05-07T22:06:10","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T04:06:10","slug":"durango-high-school-english-teacher-pretty-sure-shes-beaten-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-high-school-english-teacher-pretty-sure-shes-beaten-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango High School English teacher pretty sure she\u2019s beaten COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kaila
Kaila Coon and her doctor presume she battled COVID-19 for more than a month and suspect she transmitted the virus to her husband, Josh, and their two children, Quenton and Wesley.<\/span>Courtesy of Kaila and Joshua Coon<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Near as Kaila Coon can tell, she\u2019s not yet recognized as one of the 64 people in La Plata County who has contracted COVID-19. But given the roller coaster health ride she\u2019s been on since the end of March, she believes it\u2019s only a matter of time before the public health statistics catch up with her.<\/p>\n

In fact, the number will likely grow to include her husband, Josh, and her two young children Quenton, 8, and Wesley, 5.<\/p>\n

Kaila, an English teacher at Durango High School, started coughing March 27. By April 3, after a dry cough that wasn\u2019t too bad, she thought she was getting better. She resumed her daily runs, taking it easy, going out only every other day.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, on April 7, she deteriorated rapidly, and on April 8, she was in Mercy Urgent Care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a 24-hour period, I went from feeling like I had beaten this thing to thinking I was going to die,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At Urgent Care, after a chest X-ray, she was diagnosed with viral pneumonia, which her doctor presumes was triggered by COVID-19. At the time, the only COVID-19 tests available, nasal swabs, were at Mercy Regional Medical Center, and they were being given only to people who were sick enough to be hospitalized.<\/p>\n

She was sent home, where for a week she took over-the-counter flu medications and ran a persistent fever of 100.9 degrees.<\/p>\n

The fact that Kaila is not completely sure COVID-19 is the culprit of her illness \u2013 which left her on oxygen full time for one week, another week on oxygen at night and with dislocated ribs from coughing so hard \u2013 is testament to how hard it is to get tested for the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

With tests in short supply, her first test for COVID-19 didn\u2019t come until April 20, a nasal swab, and she tested negative, but she suspects by then the virus had moved to her lungs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me the test had a 40% false negative rate, so, to me, that\u2019s like flipping coins. I think the test was too late to be effective,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

During the course of her illness, she wanted an antibody test, but back in April, those too were not available. Currently, in Durango, there\u2019s a backlog for scheduling appointments for antibody tests. She is scheduled to have blood drawn for a test May 18 with Cedar Diagnostics.<\/p>\n

She won\u2019t be surprised if it comes back positive.<\/p>\n

\"Kaila
Kaila Coon and her doctor presume she battled COVID-19 for more than a month and suspect she transmitted the virus to her husband, Josh, and their two children, Quenton and Wesley.<\/span>Courtesy of Kaila and Joshua Coon<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Josh Coon, who is Fort Lewis College\u2019s men\u2019s cross country and track coach, will also take an antibody test May 18, and Kaila suspects he will likely test positive, too.<\/p>\n

Kaila thinks a two-day cough her husband had in early April likely resulted from contracting COVID-19 from her. Quenton and Wesley spent one day coughing at the end of March, and she suspects they also got the virus from her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to get the kids tested (for antibodies) because they scream bloody murder when they get shots,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kaila has not yet had contact tracing done to determine how she contracted the virus. Her best guess is that it came from work, where she\u2019s heard the janitorial crew at DHS \u201cwas hit pretty hard by the virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango School District 9-R Superintendent Dan Snowberger said he is unaware of any member of the janitorial staff testing positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n

He said no custodians have taken extended absence outside of normal use of sick days.<\/p>\n

He said in an email, \u201cOur custodial team has been working hard since the crisis to keep the building sanitized for those who are occupying it. We have no knowledge of any confirmed cases. We did have a few employees with pneumonia in February but none have tested positive for COVID-19 and all recovered in a week\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Coons still aren\u2019t seeing guests, although doctors have assured Kaila that COVID-19 carriers are not contagious five days after their fevers break.<\/p>\n

\"Kaila
Kaila Coon and her doctor presume she battled COVID-19 for more than a month and suspect she transmitted the virus to her husband, Josh, and their two children, Quenton and Wesley.<\/span>Courtesy of Kaila and Joshua Coon<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Family friends brought meals for 10 days straight during the worst of Kaila\u2019s illness to free Josh to care for her and the boys.<\/p>\n

She couldn\u2019t lay down for a week because phlegm would fill her lungs, so she spent a week \u201con my throne of pillows on the couch.\u201d She slept sitting up.<\/p>\n

But now, Kaila thinks she has only \u201ca bit of the gunk\u201d left in her lungs. She recently went for a hike and was fine. Her oxygen levels are now testing normal, and she\u2019s no longer short of breath doing daily chores. She coughs only during periods of exertion or if she\u2019s lying down.<\/p>\n

\"Kaila
Kaila Coon, an English teacher at Durango High School, is pretty sure she battled COVID-19 for more than a month. She suspects her sons, Wesley, 5, and Quenton, 8, contracted the virus from her. They suffered only one day of coughing in late March.<\/span>Courtesy of Kaila and Joshua Coon<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Quenton turned 8 on April 24. \u201cHe had a drive-by party invented by one of his classmates. Everybody in his class drove past the front yard and waved and threw paper airplanes into the yard with cards,\u201d Kaila said.<\/p>\n

Wesley turns 6 on May 31, and Kaila said he\u2019s already informed the family that he doesn\u2019t want a drive-by party. He wants a real party with all his friends and his grandmother from Albuquerque to visit.<\/p>\n

Kaila said her greatest worry during the ordeal was that Josh would get sick because he was the family caregiver. Luckily, he managed to kick the virus with only a two-day cough.<\/p>\n

The Coons had read the virus doesn\u2019t hit children as hard, and that helped ease their concerns about the boys.<\/p>\n

Quenton had sleeping issues when he was younger, and those returned when Kaila was in the depth of her illness. Once she was taken off oxygen, Quenton\u2019s normal sleep pattern returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuenton knows what COVID-19 is. He knows that\u2019s why he\u2019s not in school. He knows we were sick,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s pretty sharp. I think he\u2019s put two and two together. I haven\u2019t talked to him about how he might be immune. I\u2019m not even sure he is immune or if any of us are immune. We\u2019ll cross that bridge when it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

battling virus left her with dislocated ribs and on oxygen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,13,28,3815,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-88670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-medical-conditions","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88670"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=88670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}