- My name is John Dodd and
I am a junior at Alabama.
I double major in political
science and public relations.
I woke up that morning that I was sick
and the symptoms just kind of got worse.
I had a fever and a sore throat,
and I had lost my sense
of smell and taste.
But the main reason that
I went and got tested
was actually my parents.
I reached out to them
and they really stressed
that it was important.
I needed to go get a test to find out.
I ended up getting most every symptom
that I had read about,
and spoke to about with the doctor.
It all started with loss of
sense of taste and smell,
severe sore throat,
kind of resembled a
strep throat type ordeal,
severe fever that lasted about 10 days.
It was around 101.
And shortness of breath was
the scariest one, for sure.
I just wanted people to
see that a 20-year-old,
healthy boy who lives in Alabama
and has grown up around rural Alabama
all his life has got it.
And he did not have a fun time.
You know, it's okay to go get
tested and it doesn't hurt.
And I could advise people if
they do feel a little sick
to reach out to their
local healthcare physician.
And it's also very important,
like health reasons aside,
that our college experience
is gonna be very much
different than, you know,
past before us because we're
going to have to stay online
as long as we don't abide by the rules.
If we'll just abide by the rules,
then eventually, maybe we
can reach normality again.
