Ryan Sandstrom is a husband and father of four. He recently got sick with the coronavirus. For 17 days, Ryan holed up in a room in their home. He recalled, “My fear when I was in quarantine is: I don’t know if I hugged my wife for the last time, which is really hard to think about. And so I was really, really grateful when I got to be with them again. Life’s good.”
Meals were served on paper, trash piled up. When he finally emerged, he hugged the kids. He hugged his wife and sobbed.
Karen Sandstrom feared her husband would die. “It was terrifying,” she explained. “There were some times where it was like a five-hour stretch where you slept in the middle of the day and I just kept poking my head in the door like, ‘Is he still breathing? Is he okay?’”
At first, the Sandstroms’ took the virus seriously. Then, like many Americans, they stopped paying close attention when they felt the virus became political.
Ryan said, “I think my mistake was assuming that just because people had made a political that therefore it was wrong. So what I realized, you know, that this is genuine. This is real. This is not some made-up thing.”
The virus attacked Ryan’s lungs. He said, “Every time I would breathe in, it felt like it was an icepick just stabbing in my lungs.”
Then it attacked the lining around his heart, swelling it. He thought it was a heart attack. He said, “I had radiation down my left arm and a little bit of numbness down my left arm, and chest pain.”
Ryan is only 36 years old and healthy with no underlying conditions. He still has lingering health effects from a virus he thinks he gave to his wife. But she suffered only mild symptoms.
When asked why the thought he got so sick, Ryan replied, “That is the million-dollar question.”
Cases like Ryan’s still a mystery.
“We’re seeing it in young healthy patients and it’s setting it off and we’re not sure why,” said Valleywise Health Vice-Chair of Surgery Dr. Ross Goldberg. “Prevention is the best way to treat this; the best way to not worry about it is to not get it.”
The Sandstroms spoke to CNN in the hope others will avoid what they suffered. “I feel like there are still some that don’t believe it’s as bad as it can be,” Ryan said. “I feel like there’s some that just blame the politics of it. This virus is real. I’m a healthy guy, and it… it really beat me up.”
It was a hard lesson, but the Sandtroms are now closer, stronger, and more alive than ever.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus had claimed the lives of more than 170,000 Americans.
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