‘I might have coronavirus’: Missouri man angry, frustrated after begging to be tested
Chad Michael Crispin’s body is fighting something, and he dreads that the invader is COVID-19.
Crispin has been running a fever north of 100 for almost two weeks. The coughing persists, too.
Since March 11 he’s spent most of his time in bed — achy, tired, soaking the sheets with sweat, taking Advil.
And he’s angry and frustrated that it took five days to find someplace to test him.
Crispin, 38, a husband and father to three young children, wants to know what is making him sicker than he’s ever been. He heard it said at White House briefings that everyone can get tested. He saw news reports of celebrities and NBA players being tested.
But it took him five days to find a place that would test him, and this “average Missourian” feels he’s had to jump through too many hoops.
He got caught in strict screening criteria keeping sick people from getting tested as the nation deals with a shortage of testing kits, a need that commercial labs such as LabCorp and Quest have stepped in to meet. Don’t call your county health department; they’re not doing testing.
On Monday night, Crispin crossed the state line, driving a half-hour from his home in Lee’s Summit to Roeland Park.
Finally, while he sat behind the wheel of his truck in the parking lot of a Johnson County “micro-hospital,” a nurse wearing full protective gear pushed what looked like an oversized Q-tip up his nose to collect a sample for a coronavirus test.
‘I did it my way’
Last week, on Wednesday, the Army vet and self-employed handyman was renovating a client’s bathroom. Around 2, he started getting a headache. His body hurt.
He figured he had overdone it lifting heavy shower panels over his head and thought maybe dust from the saw and smell from the silicone sealant had gotten to him.
Or maybe he was sick again. Since January, everyone in the family has dealt with influenza — A and B — and strep throat.
Was it strep again, he wondered?
He packed up his gear, and by the time he got home at 4 he had a fever.
“I was ready to sleep for two days,” he said. “Within an hour of getting home I was in bed, hurting like crazy.”
His temperature that night: 102.5.
He tossed around all night, throwing the covers off, dragging them back.
He joked on Facebook about being sick, posting a video of Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.”
“I might hv coronavirus. Soooooo, I shall leave you with this. Or I may hv breathed in too much fiberglass insulation. Either way, I did it my way.”
Have you been out of the country?
The next morning, still feeling sick, Crispin called his primary care physician and answered coronavirus screening questions he has memorized by now.
Calling your health care provider is the first step health officials ask of anyone who has symptoms of the virus — a fever, cough, shortness of breath.
He was asked: Are you over 70? Do you have underlying health conditions? Have you traveled outside the country? Have you been exposed to anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19?
No. No. No. No.
He was told to stay home and call back or go to the emergency room if his symptoms worsened, he said.
He wondered when he got off the phone: “Maybe I’m just blowing this out of proportion.”
But though the symptoms were flu-like, they felt worse, debilitating fatigue and unrelenting aching in his knees, elbows and shoulders — like his muscles were contracted, clenched, more painful than after a hard workout.
That Friday, he called the state COVID-19 hotline — 877-435-8411 — run by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to find out where he could get tested.
The person on the other end asked him the same questions his doctor’s office had.
He gave the same answers.
He said he was told that he could not be tested unless his symptoms got so bad he was hospitalized. Public health officials, under the shadow of a nationwide shortage, have been warning they can’t test everyone.
This past week, Kansas Secretary of Health and Education Lee Norman announced that testing for the virus will be reduced in Johnson County, which has the most presumed positive cases of COVID-19 in the state.
The virus is spreading through the county by community transmission now, and only residents who are hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms will be tested, Norman said.
At a press conference, Norman addressed the supply for the entire state: “We’re precariously low on the test kits.”
‘We can’t test you’
When Advil didn’t do anything for his fever and body aches, Crispin went to a NextCare urgent care in Lee’s Summit on March 15, where he tested negative for influenza A and B. He was sent home with a prescription for a flu medicine “just to be sure,” he said.
He was told once again told to go the ER if his symptoms got worse — like if he became so short of breath he couldn’t walk 10 feet, or his fever climbed to 104 or higher, Crispin said.
Now he really wanted to know. If I don’t have the flu, what is it?
“I’ve been angry about it since about the third time I was told that since I hadn’t traveled outside the country and hadn’t come into contact with a COVID-positive patient and that I’m under 70 years old there’s no reason to test, just self-quarantine,” said Crispin.
Still sick last Sunday, he “kinda took a break from trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”
On Monday, with a fever still hovering around 100, still coughing and now with a very sore throat he went back to the urgent care in Lee’s Summit and was tested for strep.
He tested negative and was told again, he said, he didn’t fit the criteria for coronavirus testing and to self-quarantine at home.
The doctor told him he shouldn’t be leaving his house, Crispin said, and he kinda lost it.
“I wouldn’t be here if somebody could tell me it probably is ... COVID,” he told the doctor. “I’m trying to find out what the hell is going on so I can look out for other signs and symptoms so I don’t wind up in the hospital two days from now.”
He said the medical professionals in the community “are doing the best they can and I have nothing but respect for everyone on that level,” Crispin said. “It wasn’t ‘we don’t want to test you.’ It was ‘we can’t test you.’
“I wasn’t at any point feeling like I needed to be hospitalized. I just wanted to know what the hell I was dealing with.”
Facebook to the rescue
Crispin’s wife, Ashton, is a social worker, and through connections on Facebook learned that Saint Luke’s Community Hospital in Roeland Park was doing tests.
Crispin called, explained his situation and finally found a response he liked.
Come and get tested, he was told, two days before the state’s top health officer cracked down on testing in the county.
Crispin doesn’t understand why it took only one call. He said he didn’t pay a co-pay or fee for the test.
“My biggest scare is if I end up in the hospital. That’s really, really major,” he said. “I don’t want it to escalate to being ventilated in the hospital. That’s been my biggest scare and worry through all this.”
On Thursday, he was still feverish, still coughing, but feeling much better than he did more than a week go.
His advice to others who think they might have the virus?
“Don’t stop calling people,” he said. “Self-advocacy is the No. 1 thing you can do for yourself in this time instead of waiting for the government to let you be tested. It should be, with the medical system that we have, that everybody should be able to get tested right now.”
On Saturday, he was still waiting for his results.
This story was originally published March 21, 2020 at 3:33 PM.
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