I'm a flight attendant who is back at work after testing positive for COVID-19. Here's what my experience has been like.

• A flight attendant who says she recently tested positive for COVID-19 outlines her symptoms and experience getting tested.
• She's concerned that her airline doesn't do enough to notify other crew members about having interacted with someone who tested positive.
• She also feels that as essential workers operating in a high-risk environment, flight attendants should have priority in obtaining tests.
• She's fully recovered and back at work now, and details what flying during the coronavirus pandemic is like.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

In this As Told To, Insider's series of edited conversations about unique experiences, Sophie-Claire Hoeller talks to a 40-year-old New York-based flight attendant employed by one of the big three airlines in the US about her experience working during the pandemic, contracting the virus, and then going right back to work as soon as she was able to. She asked to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly.

Flight attendants are considered "essential critical infrastructure workers," and are thus exempt from CDC guidelines such as self-quarantine after travel or potential exposure. They are continuing to work, exposed to hundreds of people daily. Many worry about being asymptomatic carriers spreading the virus from place to place.

This conversation has been edited for clarity.

Even right up into March, I was never afraid of flying during the coronavirus pandemic.

I just figured that I'm strong, I'm healthy. I rarely get sick, so I thought, "Oh, you know, I'll be good. I'll just wash my hands, wear gloves, be very proactive with using sanitizer." I think I was kind of naive and thinking they'll figure it out, all these doctors and scientists, someone's going to figure this out before it gets here.

You definitely saw a huge change. A lot of people were coming on the airplane and cleaning their seats and wiping everything down. I don't think the airplanes have ever been this clean. People are coming in with masks and trying not to touch things, and a lot of people just didn't want anything from us when we were still doing food service. [Editor's note: The CDC now recommends everyone to wear a mask in public spaces.]

And then we noticed just fewer and fewer passengers.

I was being very proactive. I remember picking up trash and just making sure everything was as clean as could be for the next passengers that were coming on board, making sure everything was picked up, everyone's wipes and gloves and whatever was shoved into the seat pocket.

The first day that I felt symptoms (Thursday, March 19), I woke up and I didn't feel sick — I just felt like something was off

I had been working so much that I just thought I was tired. I'd been busting my butt flying because I didn't know what was going to happen in the next few months. And as soon as I got home, it was like my body shut down. I had body chills. I felt like I was running a temperature, and was just exhausted. So, I got home and I went to bed. I took my temperature later that evening and it was about 102 F. I took some Tylenol and slept through the night.

Usually, I bounce back. Usually, if I get sick like that, I do exactly what I did then: I take some Tylenol, I go to bed, I wake up the next day, and I'm completely fine. But here, the next day when I woke up it was just the same thing, and I just thought, "This is so weird. I don't get sick."

I called my primary care doctor that Friday and asked if I could get tested, and they said I needed more symptoms because I didn't have any breathing issues, tightness in my chest, or anything like that. The following day, I still had the fever and I had a tiny bit of tightening in my chest when I would cough or breathe in deep.

Then, they told me to come in, which I did because I needed a doctor's note for work.

So, I went in and the doctor did the nose swab — like a long Q-tip stuck down both nostrils with a quick swipe. It was uncomfortable, but it wasn't painful. The doctor didn't really say anything else. I don't think he was concerned about my breathing or anything like that. That was Saturday.

On March 20, I actually called the New York Department of Health to see if I could get that drive-thru testing. You call the 1-800 number and then they take your info and somebody is supposed to call you. What I found was kind of interesting: No one has ever called me. [Editor's note: New York state's website says its drive-thru testing locations give priority to "symptomatic individuals that are part of the highest risk population, those who have been in close contact with a positive case, and, as necessary, health care workers, nursing home employees and first responders on the front lines."]

I think I just called my doctor at the right time, and he just happened to have the test. A friend of mine wanted to get tested a little over a week later and they didn't have any more tests. I think I just got sick and asked for the test at the right time.

After getting tested, I was pretty much confined to my bed. I slept more than I've ever slept. I would run fevers off and on, my headaches were the worst I've ever had — no amount of Tylenol or anything would make the headache go away. It was like someone twisting a knife in the front part of my head. For the next week, I just stayed in bed with fevers off and on, headaches, body chills, and body aches. That Thursday, I got the results of the test, and also ran pretty much my last fever. My fever stayed at probably around 100 F, 101 F, that whole week.

And then on Friday, it was probably the worst headache that I had that whole time. It was pretty much all day long. The room would spin when I was laying down, I was so dizzy from these headaches. That was probably one of the worst days of the whole thing.

On Saturday, I woke up and felt fairly good. I had a lingering small headache, but nothing like the day before. Until the next Thursday, I was just tired. I would take a shower and I would need to rest.

My husband was there with me. His symptoms were super mild compared to mine, and he got over it a whole lot faster than I did. We assume he had it only because he showed symptoms a couple of days before I did, but they were very mild, I don't think he really thought a whole lot about it. He took care of me.

My symptoms ended after 14 days exactly. I didn't go back to work for another five days, after the quarantine period.

Yesterday was my first trip back to work.

I am doing much better. I feel back to normal, my energy is up, I just feel like I did before all of this, so it's nice. I thought I would never get there.

I had asked my doctor about a test I had heard about that makes sure you're negative, but he didn't seem to know much about it and didn't seem concerned. What he told me was I can go back 14 days from the first day of symptoms, and to make sure I haven't had symptoms for at least three days without taking any medicine.

I feel very lucky. I didn't have breathing issues, so I feel very fortunate that my case was mild compared to others that I've heard of. I feel fortunate that I'm here, I'm healthy, and I'm happy to be back to normal.

From my understanding, if you had a prolonged period with someone on your crew within two days of showing symptoms, you were supposed to tell your supervisor

There were two people two days prior to my experiencing symptoms that I did spend a lot of time with. From my understanding, the airline was going to call them and say "someone on your trip is showing symptoms," because at that point I didn't know if I was positive. They were going to tell the crew that somebody on the trip — they didn't mention whether I was a passenger or a flight attendant, just somebody on that trip — is being tested, they're showing symptoms, just to forewarn them. But from my understanding, they weren't telling the whole crew.

I feel like everybody on the crew should be notified, and I don't think two days is enough. I think they should go back a week and let the whole crew know that they were around somebody that had symptoms. To me, that's just ridiculous. I did tell one of the girls that was on my trip that I know. We didn't have that much contact on the trip, and as far as I know, she hasn't been sick.

I feel like people should be tested more, especially if it's someone I was sitting next to and talking to before showing symptoms. That person should most definitely be tested. But again, if you're not showing symptoms, I don't even know how you get a test.

I don't know anyone personally that has tested positive. I know a couple of people in flight attendant groups on Facebook that were symptomatic but didn't get tested. Couldn't get tested. Or some people who were negative. People who are waiting on tests or waiting on the results for the test.

I realize you can be asymptomatic too, but I feel like as far as flight attendants go, because we're essential and we're around so many people we should have a priority to be tested just like doctors and nurses and police officers.

People can't get tests, which is just ridiculous. I don't understand, and I don't know what can be done to really stop that. [Editor's note: New York state's website says that it has been given guidance by the Department of Health on prioritizing its testing "to meet the most urgent public health need" while the state's resources are not "at full capacity." The website recommends that people with concerns contact their local health department for further information on testing. The CDC also has guidelines on what to do if you are sick.]

The flight yesterday was so empty. I felt pretty safe.

The cleaners are doing an amazing job cleaning and making everything as virus-free as possible. That makes me feel good, they're doing their best with that, to keep everybody safe.

There's very minimal service, though. You're really not doing anything except handing a baggy of water and a snack to the passengers. And I mean, yesterday we had like 15 passengers.

I felt pretty good. The crew that I was with, they all seemed pretty positive, pretty comfortable. One of the girls that I was flying with had her own mask. I had a homemade mask that I made, and we were pretty diligent about wearing gloves, washing our hands.

They've definitely cut back our interaction with passengers

They're definitely trying to decrease the touchpoints, but I'm sure so many of us have had it and had no idea.

I feel like flight attendants are healthy people in general, as a group, just because we're around so much. So many of us could have had it, didn't know, just thought we're not feeling good one day, and then a day later we're fine. I don't know what would be the right way to prevent us from spreading it, because you can't even get a test when you're sick, let alone when you're not sick.

I have been hearing that masks and gloves are hard to come by, but my airline made it a requirement that flight attendants have to have gloves before the airplane can leave. In the past few weeks, we've been getting more and more of them. I read that starting April 8, we will get a mask for every day we are on a trip, so if you have a two-day trip, you're going to get two masks, plus one extra. We had those thicker nitrile gloves onboard yesterday, but I think it's been a little hit or miss whether we get them. If one station is out of gloves there's not a whole lot they can do.

The airline could have been more proactive, but I'd like to think that they were doing what they could.

Sometimes I feel like the whole airspace needs to be shut down for two weeks to stop the spread even more

We have decreased our flying exponentially: I've heard in New York we typically have about 500 flights a day and we're down to 40 or 50. [Editor's note: According to CNN, US airlines have grounded more than 30% of their fleets as they've reduced the number of flights from around 111,000 commercial flights daily to 31,000 flights.]

I go back and forth because I think that stopping the spread is obviously important, but I don't know. Can you just close air travel? There are people that still need to get from one place to another. I don't know what the right answer is.

I'm looking forward to, like everyone else, just getting back to normal life. I hope they figure something out soon.

I'm ready for that full flight again.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.