SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — It started with chills, sweats and a minor fever. Steve Vega shrugged it off as a bad cold, maybe the flu.
It was early March, and the new coronavirus outbreak that within weeks would capsize life as we knew it seemed to be to an improbable cause of his illness.
“It can’t be,” he told himself. “No way.”
About a week later, when the 55-year-old law enforcement officer who works for a San Mateo County agency started experiencing shortness of breath and a painful hacking cough, he went to see a doctor.
When test results for COVID-19 came back three days after his March 13 doctor’s visit, the law enforcement officer of 22 years was diagnosed with the virus that explained his early-stage pneumonia.
After two weeks of self-quarantining at home, Vega has since made a complete recovery and is back at work.
Vega is determined to use his experience to help others.
He is going public with his plans to donate plasma containing COVID-19 antibodies that medical experts believe may be the best available treatment option for coronavirus patients until a vaccine is developed.
His first donation appointment is scheduled for Thursday at Stanford Blood Center. Vega said he plans to make further donations.
“I got through this on my own,” Vega said. “I want to do whatever I can to help somebody or maybe even save somebody.”
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Vega works out and is reasonably fit, but he acknowledged succumbing to profound fear of the uncertainty of his condition when he learned of his diagnosis.
He credits a strong immune system and a cop’s ethos with helping him survive COVID-19.
“That was when all that stuff was starting to come out in the media,” Vega said. “Ventilators, hospitalizations. I was afraid, for me, for my family. Yeah, the unknown, it’s just really uncomfortable.”
Vega, who lives with his wife and his older son, self-quarantined in a room at his home on doctor’s orders for 14 days. He wasn’t given any special medical testing equipment.
“(The doctor) didn’t really say much,” Vega said. “Just, ‘You’re positive, stay home for 14 days and anything gets worse come into the ER.'”
Vega’s symptoms gradually improved while he was at home.
“Definitely my immune system and my mental state,” Vega said of what he considers the pivotal factors in his recovery.
“In the line of work I’m in, your mental state is that ‘this is not going to beat me.’ I just kept that mentality, and maybe that helped a little, I don’t know. I think it was just my immune system that got me through it.”
Vega became aware of convalescent plasma as a potential COVID-19 treatment. Although the treatment is still unproven, medical experts believe it offers promise.
“As soon as I found out that plasma can be used, I reached out to the American Red Cross and Stanford Blood Center, Vega said.
“I was persistent in contacting them, and they finally got back to me. They said, ‘Yeah, absolutely. We’re very happy to have you.'”
Vega is just as happy to help and aims to use his experience to raise awareness of how others can do so.
“I’m sure the public knows about this, what I’m doing, but I want to do my part to promote it, to have people do it,” Vega said. “I’m sure there are hundreds and maybe thousands of people out there like me who can do this.
“It makes a difference.”
Vega hopes his experience will help channel a cop’s can-do attitude to those dispirited by the pandemic and an uncertainty about the future we all share.
“With all this COVID stuff, there’s some positive stuff out there — but everything you’re seeing, you’re seeing bad numbers, you’re seeing people dying, all anyone’s seeing is negative, negative, negative,” Vega said.
“Well, here’s something positive, and I want to do whatever I can do to promote this.”
WANT TO JOIN VEGA IN HIS FIGHT?
Anyone who believes they’ve recovered from COVID-19 and wants to donate plasma should contact the American Red Cross or Stanford Blood Center.
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