Gary and Nancy Rosendahl had been camping when they began to not feel well. Nancy admitted that although she had been “concerned about it,” she never really thought it was COVID because both she and her husband had gotten the vaccination shot – Gary the Johnson & Johnson, and Nancy the Moderna shot.
“I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed,” said Nancy, so that’s exactly what they did.
When she began to run a high fever, she knew it was time to find out what was going on. On Sunday, Aug. 29, Nancy went to Iowa Specialty Hospital in Clarion. That’s when she found out she was indeed COVID positive. The doctors told Nancy it was most likely the Delta strain.
“I didn’t think I had the virus because I had the shot (vaccination),” Nancy explained.
They put her on oxygen and transported her by ambulance to Belmond, where they care for area COVID patients. Although her total hospital experience was about 48 hours, she was grateful it wasn’t longer and thinks part of that needs to be credited to having had the vaccination.
Because of this, and her firsthand experience, she wants to encourage others to think about getting vaccinated as well.
“Things are opening up and going on…we still need to be aware, wash our hands, wear masks…,” Rosendahl stated.
Although she said she knows her symptoms weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been, she said she still had symptoms that lasted for days.
“I felt like I had bricks on my chest,” she described.
Nancy said she wanted to share her experiences to remind others that COVID is still out there. The more things open up and the more people get back to doing “normal” things in “normal” ways, the more we have to be mindful of the potential to contract the disease, vaccinated or not.
“I have no idea where or how we got ours,” she said.
