I am Tiffany Siu, a Year 1 student in nursing studies. I have just recovered from SARS and I would like to share some of my experience with you here. Now that I have recovered I am really happy to be home again. I now understand how it feels to be a patient and how much a SARS patient has to suffer.

I can say I'm lucky because the damage to my body has not been that bad (I only have a small scar on my lung). Some patients are still in hospital, some are getting better, but some are getting worse (and are in ICU). I am really worried for them and understand there are many uncertainties that we can't control and don't even know about. During the course of the illness my fever pattern was very much the same for the first few days; it went up in the morning, came down in the evening, and went up again at mid-night. But what made me suffer most was that the doctors would not give me any drugs for the first week. They wanted to observe my fever pattern for treatment.

For the first three days, I got a high fever, low back pain, chills, vomiting and abdominal pain. Afterwards, the condition became stable for five days. But all of a sudden, I got a continuing high fever again for a week, 38.4 degree C and 37.8-39.5 on some days.

They then gave me four doses of steroids, which lowered the fever. Then I started to feel pain on the right side of my chest. Breathing became a problem. They told me the inflammation in my lungs had increased and that I had to start oxygen therapy. I felt a bit worried at the time about the inflammation and about my lung function. Then I had to stay in the hospital for another two weeks, waiting for my lungs to heal. So in total I spent 24 days there. I had an injection of steroids, more than 30 pills per day, an infusion of ribavarin, my blood taken and an X-ray every day.

The support of my family and friends has been really important. They kept calling me and sending me magazines and food. My body immunity was still poor and the side effects of the drugs were affecting my mind. I had a headache every day , but it's all over now. I'm recovering and I have anti-bodies against SARS. This is a happy thing to share with you, so this is the time for celebration. I still have to stay home for at least 10 days before I can go out. My next trip will be to see the doctor again.

Tiffany Siu, Year 1 Student of Nursing Studies, HKU
May 26, 2003