ST PAUL, Minn. — Zach Halverson, a producer for KFAN's Power Trip Morning Show, returned home from the hospital on Wednesday evening, more than five days after experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Hours before being discharged, Halverson spoke to KARE 11 via Zoom from his room inside United Hospital in St Paul.
"They took me off oxygen this morning, so that's the first time I've been breathing on my own in five days," Halverson said. "I'm finally making progress."
The Power Trip show dominates the local ratings, but the hosts were forced to abruptly sign off last week, after learning of Halverson's positive test.
At the time, Halverson had already missed several days of work with symptoms that included fever, insomnia and severe nausea.
"I haven't eaten more than, probably 20 saltine crackers," Halverson said during a call in to the Power Trip show last Thursday.
Unfortunately, he wasn't alone. Halverson says both his parents also experienced symptoms.
By the weekend his father was feeling better, but both he and his mother, Kathy, started feeling extremely short of breath and, within hours of each other, made the decision to go to the emergency room at United Hospital in St. Paul.
"They brought the word ventilator up and that was ... that was terrifying." Halverson said.
He says doctors diagnosed him with blood clots and pneumonia, but offered to try a variety of promising experimental treatments including convalescent plasma, the drug Remdisivir and steroids.
"There was a point where I really didn't feel like I was going to get any better," Halverson said. "But I started taking the stuff and eventually, obviously, I'm starting to feel better."
Unfortunately, he says his mom, Kathy, isn't improving as quickly. He says she continues to battle fluid in her lungs and a cough that won't quit.
"I don't know, honestly, what's worse. Fighting it myself or watching my mom fight it," Halverson said. "It's terrible, it's unpredictable and you get very scared because, even at the hospital here, they're learning more and more and more about it every day."
He says that's why he wants even young, healthy people to consider the risk COVID poses to them and to others if they pass it on.
"I'm telling you, the people on my floor here, they're not all old people, they're not all unhealthy people, there's plenty of people who are getting pretty sick from this that are just normal every day people," he said. "I think it would be nice for more people to understand that."
Friends have set up a GoFundMe page for the entire Halverson family as they brace a prolonged fight against the virus, bills associated with multiple hospital stays and various treatments.