CNN's Brooke Baldwin revealed her "scary and lonely" coronavirus battle, which saw her fighting constant body aches, "dread and isolation."
The anchor shared her "relentless, scary, and lonely" fight against COVID-19 in a frank essay for the publication, detailing the symptoms and the experience of self-quarantine.
Her damning diagnosis came just days after her colleague Chris Cuomo also tested positive for the deadly virus.
Days before she tested positive for the killer bug, Brooke interviewed former Vice President Joe Biden and Emily Fawcett, a nurse at Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC.
Brooke described how she even became isolated from her own husband – who she's described as "superman" – as they used separate bedrooms and bathrooms to lesson his chances of contracting it.
"I went to some very dark places, especially at night. Evenings would bring on an eerie melancholy," Brooke said.
The journalist admitted she got too sick to even continue her regular COVID updates on Instagram which left her "cut off from my purpose" and experiencing "the virus firsthand all by myself."
"On the darker days, I didn't want to talk to anyone. After days of trying to stay physically apart from my husband, it just became impossible," she recalled.
"The isolation might be worse than the body aches. I am endlessly grateful that I have a selfless husband who is also lucky enough to have remained well while I was ailing."
Brooke said that even food lost its appeal as the deadly bug caused her to lose her sense of taste and smell.
The day before she lost both of her senses, she "kept smelling the acrid ammonia-like odor of jewelry cleaner."
She slept around 10 to 12 hours every night and woke up in a sweat with a "golf-ball sized gland swelling" under her jaw.
I’ll let you know when we post my “Coronavirus Diary” to cnn.com (takeaways on symptoms — I still can’t smell or taste — and also my revelations on clarity and connection). My husband <<knock on wood>> feels well. When I felt well enough, I read a lot of @glennondoyle and @brenebrown and watched @littlefireshulu, @unorthodox.netflix and @britishbakeoff. Tell me what else I need to read/watch as I kick the last bit of this virus! #coronavirus #effcovid19 #covid19
A post shared byBrooke Baldwin (@brooke_baldwin) on
After 14 days, Brooke told her Instagram followers she is feeling better – but her sense of smell and taste have yet to return and she still had a cough.
"I sound like myself," she said in a video post three days ago. "Chris [Cuomo] is right about at nighttime like the melancholy. There is something to that setting in and the tears.
"But also, coming through it and finding clarity on the importance of connection."
Brooke said she would be going to the doctor next week to make sure the virus was gone.
"I have to into CNN to do my job and I don't want to step a foot into that building until I get the all-clear," she said from her NYC home.
In her essay, Brooke acknowledged she was one of the lucky ones because "even though my body constantly gave me the middle finger, my lungs did not."
The independent reporter vowed to let her husband look after her more.
She also began to appreciate the outpouring of love from friends, family, and strangers online, despite initially feeling "vulnerable" amid all the attention.
"I hope as my smell and taste and some sense of normalcy start to return, that I will also hold onto the clarity and connection I found while I was so damn sick," she concluded.
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