Joyce Burton recovers from COVID-19, believes she got virus in cafe

Image: Facebook/@joyce.burton.titular

Actress-host Joyce Burton has had a tough bout with COVID-19, and though she is in recovery, she has a strong reminder about following coronavirus protocols.

The former beauty queen revealed on Facebook last Friday, Jan. 22, that she and husband Ron Titular managed to survive COVID-19. Titular was “mostly asymptomatic,” while Burton had a more serious case and was in the hospital for nine days. Her househelp and the help’s daughter were thankfully both negative, which Burton credited to having strict protocols at home.

The Binibining Pilipinas Universe 1985 titleholder believes that she and her husband got it while eating at a cafe last Dec. 30, a rare time when they were maskless. She said they had been “pretty strict” with protocols, but that “during the days before and after New Year’s we were going to the mall almost daily.”

“For the first time ever, we took off our masks in a closed public space (low-ceiling [too]) to enjoy a meal,” she recalled.

Four days after eating at the cafe, she had COVID-19 symptoms: “fever, body aches, mild headaches and brain fog.” She and her husband isolated, and her illness worsened until she had to go to the hospital.

“On Day 5 of symptoms, I lost my sense of smell,” she recounted. “I could not smell my perfume, I could just sense the fumes. Ach! It was both strange and frightening. It was then that I knew I was [COVID] positive for sure.”

By the second week, she had pneumonia in both her lungs. She checked into a hospital on day 8, and admitted being scared.

“The fear was brought on by the on-and-off asthma, the debilitating headaches that ate up my sleep and joy, the return of fever (twice) and the pneumonia getting worse,” she said. “And the most worrisome detail of all was losing my desire for coffee. Only you coffee freaks would understand JUST how alarming this can be… give me an amen and awomen!”

Besides the fear and the disease, Burton also had to battle boredom while staying in the hospital. She recalled having visions of being in faraway places and wishing she was elsewhere. She said that her “true healing” only began when she was simply satisfied with God’s presence in her hospital room.

Burton assured concerned friends and followers that she is recovering at home with her dogs, and hopes to heal from pneumonia sooner than the three months a doctor told her to expect.  /ra

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