Patrick McEnroe on How His Wife Helped Him Fight Coronavirus While Quarantined in Their Basement

ESPN commentator and tennis champion Patrick McEnroe knew something wasn’t right when he felt tired and achy and started to develop a mild cough around March 21.

Feeling slightly feverish, he asked his wife, Broadway singer and Billions actress, Melissa Errico, to take his temperature – which had reached 100.5.

“When I got the fever, we figured I should self-quarantine in the basement,” McEnroe, 53, tells PEOPLE.

On Monday, McEnroe learned that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

He wasn’t surprised when he got the news Monday morning. “I was like, ‘OK. That makes sense,’” he says.

“Now the question becomes – what do I have to do to figure out whether the virus has cleared my system so I can go back upstairs with my wife and kids?” he asks.

On Tuesday, the men’s doubles champion delivered the news to his Twitter followers via video, saying he’d been self-isolating in the basement of his home in Westchester County, New York, for the last 11 days after coming down with “some minor symptoms.”

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— Patrick McEnroe (@PatrickMcEnroe) March 31, 2020

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“The good news is: I feel fine,” he says in the video. “My symptoms have passed. I feel really 100 percent.”

Still, he and his wife learned a lot from the experience, which they are happy to pass on to others.

As soon as Errico realized that her husband had a fever, she knew he needed a place to stay away from her and their three teenage daughters, Victoria, and twins, Diana and Juliette.

The only place where he could self-quarantine was in their basement, where “Juliette and I made up a nice bed for him,” Errico tells PEOPLE.

Wanting to make sure infected droplets from any of his coughs or sneezes stayed away from the rest of the family, Errico grabbed a hammer and nails and put up a shower curtain around her ailing husband – a tip she borrowed from her dad “who was a doctor in Vietnam,” she says.

Fortified with bottles water, Tylenol and three meals Errico slid under the shower curtain each day (along with a few “Katherine Hepburn” brownies she made from a recipe she found in The New York Times), McEnroe hunkered down.

“My symptoms were there but pretty mild,” he says. “I spoke to my doctor and Melissa’s father, who is a doctor. Everybody was telling me I wasn’t sick enough to go to the hospital.”

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Still, he wanted to know whether or not he actually had the virus, so he went to the New York State website and called a 1-800 number to find out how to get tested.

After giving some basic information including his age and symptoms, “I got a call this past Friday,” he says. “They said your test is going to happen on Monday. Here is where to go.’”

On Monday afternoon, he headed to a drive-through test in New Rochelle and stayed in his car while a technician “did a swab in each of my nostrils and down my throat.

“It couldn’t have been easier,” he says. “I thanked them for their service and what they were doing.”

As for now, he is going to remain in the basement and continue to spend time with his family via Facetime and by taking walks where “we keep our distance from each other.”

He’s grateful to his wife for taking such good care of him and their girls while he has been in quarantine.

“She is one hell of a cook,” he says.

Errico says she is relieved that he’s doing better. “But it’s been scary,” she says. “I’m cleaning like crazy. I’ve Cloroxed everything I can think of.”

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While the family had planned to celebrate Errico’s 50th birthday in Greece, McEnroe was still able to figure out a memorable way to mark the milestone birthday on March 23, quarantine-style: “I threw a Zoom party for her birthday,” he says. “So that was cool.”

So is spending tons of time with the family dog, Pepper. “He’s never been this happy because he is with me all day now. I’ve never taken him on so many walks.”

He hopes his story helps others.

“I’m an example of someone that’s been able to fight through it and I’m doing absolutely fine,” he says in the video. Thoughts and prayers to all the people struggling with this.”

“We gotta do our part. We gotta listen and we gotta stay home,” he added.

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