ByCathy OwenBreaking News Editor
07:22, 5 MAR 2020
Connor Reed, from Llandudno, got ill while working as an English teacher in Wuhan.
The 25-year-old described how it started as "just a sniffle" on November 25 - a month before authorities officially announced the virus - but over the next three-and-a-half weeks he got increasingly ill and was unable to move.
He had initially tried to cure himself with whisky and honey - better known as a 'hot toddy'.
After seven days of feeling under the weather, Connor's symptoms started to drastically worsen, and fearing he had regular flu he then took time off from the school he had worked at for seven months.
He kept a diary of his symptoms which started with normal cold like symptoms - sneezing and bleary eyes.
It wasn't enough for him to stay off work.
By day two he had a sore throat and tried using his mum's remedy of hot water and honey to soothe it.
On day five he thought he was over the worst of it, but by day seven he was aching all over.
He wrote in his diary that has been published by the Daily Mail : "My head is thumping, my eyes are burning, my throat is constricted.
"The cold has travelled down to my chest and I have a hacking cough. This is flu, and it’s going to take more than a mug of hot honey, with or without the magic whisky ingredient, to make me feel better."
The next day Connor, who lives alone, told his bosses he would unlikely be back to work for a week, admitting "even my bones are aching", while he could not get out of bed without pain and even coughing hurt.
A little stray kitten that hung around in Connor's apartment suddenly looked unwell and didn't want any of the food he offered her - before tragedy struck and she died on Day 11.
However, what Connor would quickly learn was only the calm before the storm, miraculously he was beginning to feel better, as if the flu had lifted.
But then on day 12, he had a relapse.
He says: "Just as I thought the flu was getting better, it has come back with a vengeance. My breathing is laboured.
"Just getting up and going to the bathroom leaves me panting and exhausted. I’m sweating, burning up, dizzy and shivering. The television is on but I can’t make sense of it. This is a nightmare."
It got so bad, he even questioned if he was dying: "By the afternoon, I feel like I am suffocating. I have never been this ill in my life. I can’t take more than sips of air and, when I breathe out, my lungs sound like a paper bag being crumpled up.
"This isn’t right. I need to see a doctor. But if I call the emergency services, I’ll have to pay for the ambulance call-out myself. That’s going to cost a fortune. I’m ill, but I don’t think I’m dying — am I?"
He decided to go to Zhongnan University Hospital and doctors there diagnosed pneumonia, and was given anitbiotics
In the end, he didn't take the antibiotics and by day 22 he was starting to feel better, and by day 24 was able to go back to work.
It was after that he heard rumours of a virus that could cause pneumonia was affecting a lot of people.
Today, that virus has spread across the world.
