Nigro & The King many, many pounds ago
Anybody out there who doesn’t have the coronavirus blues?
And frankly, I’m not sure which is worse; worrying if you get it that it may be last hurrah time; watching the mainstream media and Kansas City Star turn everything into a politicized news nightmare; or, you know, actually coming down with the disease.
Westport businessman Bill Nigro found out the hard way, speaking of the latter.
Two weeks back on a Sunday night, what began as something resembling a good, old fashioned, severe flu, turned into a full blown corona storm that made a true believer out of the 60-something Kansas City entertainment and restaurant czar.
After having a drive-in swab jammed up his nose so far he could almost feel his brain, Nigro was diagnosed with the new, big C.
Whereupon he basically went to heck in a hand basket, lived to tell the story and is now waiting out a two week post coronavirus quarantine, and hoping he’s seen the last of it.
“I feel incredibly better and I haven’t had a fever since a week ago Sunday,” Nigro says. “And I’m starting to gain weight again. I went from almost 160 pounds down to 140 pounds in less than a week – that’s a lot of weight to lose.
“Now I’m just down to being being sick in the head,” he quips. “But I was in pretty peak shape and I think that helped me immensely because I have type two diabetes.”
How bad was it?
“Well, I got pretty darn sick,” Nigro says. “Especially losing all that weight, because I couldn’t hold anything down. At least it didn’t get into my lungs.”
Other than a 102 degree fever, being weak as a kitten and hours on end riding the porcelain bus with a killer headache, the worst part of Nigro’s coronavirus bout entailed spending endless hours in the bathroom, chugging glass after glass of water, since that was the only thing he could halfway hold down.
And let the record show, Nigro had been laing pretty darn low, keeping his distance via minimal contact with other people, while he continued to operate his storage biz in Westport. On top of which, he washed and disinfected his hands repeatedly.
So how did Wild Bill catch the Big C?
“I think I got it at the gas station,” he says. “Because I was so careful, and I hadn’t been to a store or anywhere else.
“And I wasn’t really around anybody else much at all – some UPS and Fed X drivers – but I never shook their hands and washed my hands after I handled any boxes.”
So if Nigro had a do-over?
“You know, I should have just taken a paper towel and put it over the gas pump,” he says.
And while time heals all wounds – kinda – Nigro’s nightmarish details remain vivid.
“I had a horrible headache and was extremely tired,” Nigro says. “At least now I can worry about it a lot less. I mean, the mental screwing is over, but I’m still going to be very careful and wear a mask anywhere I go. Because I don’t want anybody else to have to go through what I went through.”
Amen and congrats, Brutha Bill…
Oh yeah, well-intentioned friends and associates should give Nigro a little space while he’s getting back up to speed and lay off on calling and texting him.
