HONESDALE, Pa. — Scott Walck of Lake Ariel found himself to be a statistic in the early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic in Pennsylvania. He was one of the first positive cases in Wayne County and originally spent nine days being treated for COVID-19 at Wayne Memorial Hospital.
"They started running a battery of tests, and it just took off from there. They basically went and stuck me in a zero-compression room. Those doctors were absolutely amazing. Technically, I was their first patient. They did not skip a beat. I had no clue that's even what it was," Walck said.
While he praises the doctors and health care providers who cared for him while he was battling COVID-19, Walck says the hardest part was being alone in the hospital without his family.
"The mental aspect of the disease is a lot more than the physical symptoms at times, just laying there, knowing that you're not able to breathe. Every possible question that you could possibly ask, my wife or I asked, it was always, 'we don't know,'" Walck said.
Walck isn't out of the woods yet. Because of the medications he was on, his lungs are weak, and he is still working with a pulmonologist to help his lungs heal. And he's not the only one battling to Coronavirus in the Walck household.
"My wife had tested positive, and my young son tested positive. My 17-year-old son had two days' worth of it, and he was fine. My wife has a little touch of the lung part of it, too, not to the extent that I did."
Walck stressed that he wanted to make people aware of the severity of this disease, but there is hope. He and his family are working with the Red Cross to try to donate plasma to hopefully help those battling the Coronavirus now.