‘This touches everybody.’ A Key West woman has learned she’s Patient 30 in Monroe County
Amy Culver knew something was wrong.
It was the cough that began a week ago, a week after she had begun to self-quarantine because she had just returned from Mexico City.
That cough went from bad to worse. Fast.
“You’re holding onto the counter, you’re just afraid you’re going to pass out,” the 55-year-old Key West woman described it on Thursday.
It was the day after her doctor told her she had tested positive for COVID-19, the sometimes deadly disease caused by the coronavirus.
“I’m patient Number 30,” she said.
She gave a sample on Friday morning at Dr. John Norris’ downtown Key West office.
They stick a swab into your nose, she said.
“It goes right up your nose into your eyeball,” Culver said. She found out five days later, which she considers fairly quick, considering the number of patients in Florida.
On Thursday evening, the Florida Department of Health reported that statewide there were 9,008 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19.
Monroe County had 38 cases, including 19 in Key West. The state reported that 347 people had been tested in Monroe: 38 positive, 228 negative and 81 awaiting results.
The health department in Monroe County announced Thursday night the first confirmed COVID-19-related death, a 55-year-old man who died at Lower Keys Medical Center in Key West.
Culver announced her diagnosis Wednesday in a post on her Facebook page. She made it public to promote awareness of the disease.
“People are not being responsible,” Culver said. “They think it’s not going to touch them. This touches everybody. This is a time to be responsible.”
Culver has lived through plenty of hardship. She lost her husband to suicide years ago.
She now knows the pain of COVID-19. The massive headaches that won’t stop. The high fever that won’t go away.
Culver likened the cough to having glass shards inside her stomach.
“Once it gets to the glass shards — it’s like you’re trying to spit up the glass shards in your stomach.”
She’s said she’s a little stir crazy, joking that moving from couch to bed is like playing chess with herself.
She has a support system. She worries about those who don’t.
“I’m sitting pretty,” she said. “People are dropping off food to me. Publix has been great doing delivery. I want for nothing which is a wonderful thing. A lot of people out there, they do need something. If you haven’t seen your neighbor or someone for a couple of days, call her.”
Culver has no idea where and when she caught the coronavirus. It could have been in Mexico City, she said, or maybe she picked it up when she got home to the condo she had rented out while she was away.
“You could ask Dr. Jack Norris,” she said. “I did everything right. I self-quarantined. I stayed shut in. I didn’t go out in public. Nothing.”
So we asked. And the doctor agreed she did the right things.
“There’s no way to be 100 percent perfect,” Norris said. “As good as a soul is, as Culver is, there’s no way to be perfect. This is one of those germs that are amazingly infectious.”
If people touch their keys, which have touched the coronavirus, and then their face, they could catch it, Norris said.
Pens are a source of contamination, he said.
“She is a good person who honestly tried to socially distance and probably did 95 percent without realizing she had a breach,” Norris said.
Culver, who for 16 years ran the restaurant Mango’s on Duval Street, along with a catering business, has spent recent years traveling to Africa on humanitarian missions, teaching women business skills.
Culver was raised on another island, Nahant, Massachusetts, which has one square mile of land area. She went to the University of Maine and studied art at the Aix-en-Provence in France.
She’s known in Key West, her home of 30 years, for volunteer work. She was among the first group of locals to work on forming Key West Cares after Hurricane Dorian tore through the Bahamas to send supplies and relief to the region.
Now she’s the one on the receiving end of help.
“I’m not sorry,” she said. “I”m happy it’s me as opposed to someone who is either weaker or doesn’t have the same support mechanisms. I’d rather take one for the team on this. I can get through this. Then I can start doing my part.”
Culver said she believes she will survive COVID-19.
“I’m not going down,” she said, with a laugh. “I’m a true pirate.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 2:02 PM.
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