My Family and I Just Had COVID, Here is Our Experience

This post is in no way a political post, nor is it trying to sway anyone one way or another on getting the vaccine. This is simply a true telling of me and my families experience of what we went through having COVID-19.

We are all ok now, and while it was close at one point, none of us had to go to the hospital. That being said there were times when it was a pretty scary and worrisome experience. There was also a little humor looking back on certain situations, because humor is healing and we needed it. Like the sandwich that made me cry and ice packing my man.

My man Kris started with a 'tickle in his throat' while he was at work. I've known him for about four years and in that time he maybe had one minor cold but is very healthy and really never gets sick. The next day some body aches, headaches and mild fatigue set in. By day 3 the fever started.

It was about a day after that my 7-year-old son Titus and I started noticing headaches. I kept him home from school the next day just to be cautious. Luckily it was after the long weekend so there was no concern about him spreading it at his school. I started to noticed more fatigue coming on and also body aches started. At that point I was pretty sure that we had a house full of Covid but none of us had been tested and Kris was certainly the worst off.

I had a big grocery delivery ordered dropped off at the door. We all still had our appetites, so at least had non of the stomach stuff that is often associated with the virus. I made all three of us fantastic sandwiches, loaded with veggies, ham, turkey, cheese and even horseradish. I took a bite, and chewed. Hmmmm, I took another bite and chewed. While the texture was there, I should have tasted so many delicious flavors. Nothing. I tasted nothing. I cried over my sandwich. As silly as it sounds that sandwich is when it all really hit me that this was real. This thing, this virus that we have been sanitizing against, masking against, social distancing for and pretty much hiding from was in our home. That darn sandwich is when I really knew, we all had it. Like I said I already kinda knew but this made it clear. I was also ticked I just spend over $200 in healthy and fantastic groceries when we could have just settled for beans and rice because we couldn't taste anything anyway. Apples were like cardboard, strawberries were just awful and so strange. If you have been through COVID and lost your taste and smell you understand. If you haven't it is so strange, SO STRANGE. Your brain is trying to register because it knows what that food item should taste like but no, there is nothing.

Back to my man Kris, you know that tickle in his throat? It turned into a 10 day fever. Continuous fever, medicine would bring it down yes, but as soon as it wore off in a couple of hours the fever was right back up again. While the fever usually hovered around the 102 to 102.5 range, the highest it got was 104 - scary high, on day 8. I was on the couch in our living room working on my laptop, typing an article actually when he walked in from sleeping in our bedroom. I could see he looked red right away, he turned the thermometer toward me and I could see the little screen was bright red too. "How high?" I asked as I put my computer down. 104. I had him sit and immediately got ice water, meds and cold (ice) packs, that we use for camping from the freezer. While at the time it was scary, now the scene is almost comical. After he took the medicine so it could start working I held Ice packs on his bare chest and back while balancing a soft one on his head. I stood there moving them around and turning them from front to back until, between the ice packs and the medicine we got it down and just under 100 in 20 minutes or so. Fevers for adults at 105 can start causing all kinds of damage to the body and brain so 104 is not something we wanted to mess around with. On day 9 of fever, he thought it was never going away, his body was exhausted and his mind was drained from fighting it off for so long and he was truly getting worried and thinking the worst in his head. On day 10 he got severe body shakes and chills. Nearly a minor seizure that lasted about 15 minutes or so. We were severely concerned that this was him taking a turn even worse and seriously contemplated a hospital visit at this point. As it turns out that seemed to be his body breaking the fever. It hovered around 100 that night but by the next morning the fever at least was gone.

Kris was certainly the worst off out of the three of us. I had massive headaches, body aches that came and went, lost taste and smell and was very, very tired. Titus mostly suffered headaches, was extra tired and just over all said his body 'didn't feel good.' We had an oxygen monitor and I checked all of our heart rate, temps and oxygen levels every few hours. The lowest our oxygen went for any of us was 96% so nothing too worrisome there, thank goodness.

Shout out to all the moms out there, you know what it is like when you don't feel well but still have to take care of the family. That was me. Kris was certainly more sick than me so I was constantly making sure he was ok and had everything he needed. Titus needed constant care and attention because he is a little guy that didn't feel good. I never got a day to just be sick.

By day 6, my son and I went to get a rapid test. We ended up having to wait in line for over five hours to get the test. Read more about that here. We got it and sure enough both came up positive. We all were good and stayed in except to grab the mail and get some fresh air in the back yard. While some neighbors were super helpful, others acted like we were leapers. It was a very weird time. At this point Titus is back in school, and Kris and I are safely back at work. Thank goodness. I am half vaccinated and was due to get my second dose the weekend that we all got sick, so I have yet to get it because you cant get it while you are sick. Kris is not vaccinated, although after the ordeal and doing more studying has decided to get vaccinated. We do think that my half vax is why I luckily didn't get nearly as sick has he did, although I had some pretty rough days. We are grateful that we all got through it without a visit to the hospital but I still would not wish this on anyone. I know many have had it way worse and many have had it way more mild. This was our story though and while I seriously considered just not telling anyone and moving on, I felt the story needed to be told. Stay well my friends.