The CNN newsman shared a health updated and reflected on how the coronavirus can impact your mind as well as your body.
Chris Cuomo has been battling the coronavirus for over a week now, and while he's on the mend, the CNN newsman says the illness has been affecting his mind as well as his body.
During Tuesday's new episode of Cuomo Prime Time, the 49-year-old TV journalist opened up about how he's feeling at this point in his struggle with COVID-19.
"I feel lousy because it's night time," shared Cuomo, who has previously explained how the symptoms of the disease seem to get worse in the evening. "And I'm a little depressed because yesterday and today, the fever came back with a little bit more gusto than I had in the past couple of days before that."
"That's depressing. It's hard to have a fever for 20 hours a day," Cuomo said to fellow CNN anchor Sanjay Gupta. "It just wears you down emotionally."
Cuomo explained that the prolonged health issues and persistent, painful fever have made him "start to question things," especially whether or not he'll actually ever recover.
"I know all the probabilities are on my side. I know I'm not dealing with metastatic cancer here. But the less knowns that there are, the longer it takes, you start to doubt," he explained. "You start seeing these stories that trickle out just often enough to freak you out. 'Holy cow, that guy was my age. She had no underlying symptoms, that kid's only 25, what happened? Dead in 50 hours, what happened?' There are enough of those stories… [but] nobody knows anything about how long this is supposed to take."
Later in the episode, after coming back from a commercial break, Cuomo appeared to go off prompter to share a message with his viewers who may be struggling with COVID-19 themselves.
"When you have a fever over a number of days, it affects you, not just physically. It affects you psychologically and emotionally, okay?" Cuomo said. "You're going to have some weird thoughts, all right? Not necessarily suicidal ideations -- of course you've got to be in contact with your doctor about anything like that -- but just be mindful that there is a good chance that you're being lousy to the people who are being best to you."
Cuomo -- who has been self-quarantining in his basement during his illness, to prevent his wife and their three children from getting sick -- said he's been "trying to stay keenly aware" of his own behavior.
"I feel my edge, I feel my frustration," he admitted. "The people around you are so nervous, they don't want to get sick, they don't like that you're sick, they don't like that they can't get you better. Don't play into that by making it worse. Be your best. I know it's hard. Believe me, I get that it's hard."
"You will get better faster knowing that the people around you feel better, too. OK? Just keep it in mind," he added. "Hopefully you're not dealing with that. I am a little bit. I'm getting a little mean from this right now. I got to deal with it."
Cuomo has been very open about his own struggles with COVID-19 since he was first diagnosed last Tuesday, after several days of symptoms. It seems the thing that he's had the hardest time dealing with is his severe fever.
"I've lost 13 pounds in three days," Cuomo revealed last week. "Now, I'm a big guy, I started off at 230 pounds.... [but] I'm eating and drinking constantly. I'm just sweating it out, and it's just the sickness."
He has previously shared that his fever has been as high as 103, which has even lead to hallucinations.
"I was shivering so much ... I chipped my tooth. I was up all night. I was hallucinating. My dad was talking to me," added Cuomo, whose late father, Mario Cuomo, died in 2015. "I was seeing people from college, people I haven't seen in forever. It was freaky what I lived through last night, and it might happen again tonight. Doctors said it could happen, like, five or eight times."
For more on Cuomo's diagnosis and his battle with the coronavirus, see the video below.
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