GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — On April 1, 2020, Dr. Daniel Lewis went from being a chief medical officer at Greeneville Community Hospital to one of their first COVID-19 patients.
"I was probably one of the first 10 cases in Greene County," he said.
Lewis is 42 years old and said he was in good health when he started to notice the symptoms.
"I was aware that I was feeling more short of breath," he said. "I was having more trouble taking a deep breath. I noticed that my pulse, my heart rate was increasing also."
Lewis thinks he got the virus from a meeting he had in March.
After one day as a patient at his own hospital, he was transferred to the COVID-19 wing of Johnson City Medical Center.
He stayed in that hospital room for 32 days, including 10 days on a ventilator.
"After I came off the ventilator I had about seven days where I was delirious and wasn't 100 percent sure of my surroundings or what situation I was in for about the next week following that," said Lewis.
He said just walking across the hospital room was too hard on his lungs.
"At one point my lungs just felt like they were just kind of locked up and I couldn't really expand them out completely," he said.
At the beginning of May, Lewis left the hospital and was greeted outside by his family who he hadn't seen since he was admitted.
"No one was allowed to visit me," said Lewis. "The only people that visited me were the staff who were taking care of me. So being isolated from my family for near six weeks was the most difficult part for me probably."
After he was discharged from the hospital, he spent a week at a rehabilitation center before heading home.
Lewis now knows firsthand how serious the virus is.
"I would say COVID is like the flu multiplied by a factor of about 100," he said.
After experiencing what the pandemic is like as a doctor and a patient, Lewis said he's doing his part to stop the spread.
"This really I think is the challenge to our generation, to really take this seriously," he said. "Wear our masks, wash our hands and social distance to get this under control."