The American doctor who made a miraculous recovery from a battle with Ebola has spoken out in his first sit-down interview while recovering at home with his wife and three children.
The physician said that he first started feeling symptoms of the disease at the end of July, when he came down with a low fever that made him feel ‘a little off, a little warm and a little under the weather’.
At first, he hoped it was malaria or dengue fever, but the results kept coming back negative until he was eventually tested for Ebola. The positive test means death for more than 90 per cent who catch the disease, but Dr Brantly said he never lost faith even when doctors started to fear he wouldn’t make it through the night.
The disease quickly took hold in Liberia, when he started struggling to breathe and his body was overcome with shaking and violent shivers.
‘And I said to the nurse who was taking care of me, “I’m sick. I have no reserve. And I don’t know how long I can keep this up.” And I said, “I don’t know how you’re going to breathe for me when I quit breathing.”
“Because that was the reality. I thought, I– I’m not gonna be able to continue breathing this way.” And they had no way to breathe for me if I had to quit breathing,” Dr Brantly recalled.
Hope finally arrived early last month, when Dr Brantly and fellow missionary worker Nancy Writebol, 59, were flown out of Liberia for treatment at Emory.
The two Americans were the first to receive ZMapp which helped them fight off the disease.
Within just a few weeks, both were discharged from the hospital after testing negative for Ebola in their blood.
