Georgia Southern student uses intramurals to recover from COVID

By Samuel Clark

Photo courtesy of Brandon Frost

Between working for intramural sports at Georgia Southern University and his schoolwork, Brandon Frost normally enjoys a happy, healthy life hanging out with his friends, and enjoying college life. His normal flow of life was completely altered in September though, when he was hit like a freight train by COVID-19.

In the first week of September, when cases in Bulloch County had reached a record of over 100 confirmed cases per day, Frost began to feel a little bit under the weather, which was unusual, as he normally does not get sick. He is in great shape, stays active and generally is a very healthy person.

On Sept. 2, Frost decided to get a COVID-19 test, which came back negative, so he went back home, assuming that he was just experiencing some mild allergies.

Two days later, Frost was practically bed-ridden. His body ached, he had lost all sense of taste and smell and he had massive headaches. He tried to just wait it out, but after two days of constant pain, decided to go to the hospital.

“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” said Frost, “I was not expecting it to be as bad as it ended up being.”

Frost was admitted to the East Georgia Regional Medical Center on September 4th and was not able to leave the hospital for three days. He underwent multiple COVID-19 tests while at the hospital. Two that came back positive and two that came back negative.

“It really shows how unreliable the COVID tests can be,” said Frost, “I had I think four total tests during that time, and two came back negative even though I clearly had the virus.”

After coming back from the hospital, Frost still was not able to smell or taste for nearly a week and isolated himself for two weeks after testing negative for the last time. This hit Frost pretty hard regarding his schoolwork, grades and job, which all took a massive drop during this month-long period of self-isolation.

“Since I wasn’t able to go to my in-person classes or work on anything hands-on, I started to really struggle academically,” Frost said. “As a mechanical engineering major, these last couple of semesters I have left are where my schooling is the most important.”

Frost is normally very involved in intramural sports, not only as a participant, but also as a supervisor, where he is in his second year with Campus Recreation and Intramurals.

He was not able to work or involve himself in any of the intramural sports offered at the RAC for the entire month that he was isolated.

“It really sucked that I was not able to participate in Intramurals at that time, since that was really the only way that I was able to hang out with my friends last semester,” said Frost.

Frost has since had one COVID-19 test which came back negative and has had no symptoms since coming out of isolation. He has also been able to resume his duties as a supervisor for intramural sports and hang out with his friends once again through playing intramural sports, where he has won three intramural championships in multiple sports since recovering from COVID-19.

Frost’s story is but one of thousands of similar stories that have occurred in Bulloch County, where over 5,000 confirmed cases have been reported. His experience really just goes to show that even those who are healthy can still be heavily affected by COVID-19.