This article references how my family got COVID-19 from a home exposure. Like what the health professionals have been talking about. We shut down indoor playdates a few weeks ago (aside from 3 pre-approved friends who share our COVID philosophy of carefulness), and had no-one over for Thanksgiving.
The night after Monday, where my 8 year old son and I were jointly listening to the City Council Meeting on my earbuds (he and I now have COVID-19) , I awoke on Tuesday feeling pretty achy in my back. My partner had been feeling pretty achy the Saturday and Sunday before. He commutes to his job in a different state, and gets tested 3x/weekly for that job. His achy-ness was typical of him being worn down by his job, so we never suspected coronavirus symptoms. Instead, I talked to him through the drive to and from work, to make sure he stayed awake. He quarantines in our house, and doesn’t really go anywhere when in Beacon.
This was the weekend after Thanksgiving, and for Thanksgiving, my biggest concern was to make a dinner that did not cause his diverticulitis to flare up. Last year - 2019 - we spent the night in the ER in Ohio because he ate some popcorn or something, and was in a lot of pain. Then he got rotator cuff surgery after falling on his already sore shoulder. For us, Christmas 2019 was a recovery zone. Therefore, I made it through Thanksgiving 2020 with an amazing meal. No diverticulitis. Success!
The following weekend, however, he did walk through our door with COVID-19. But we didn’t know that at the time. His regular Friday test was negative. Then the weekend of achy. His Monday test was positive. By Tuesday, I was achy. But I didn’t know he was positive yet. I did know his Friday test was negative, so I was going about my day, be-bopping around on errands. But on Wednesday, when I awoke for a 3rd day of achy bones, he called to tell me that his Monday test was positive.
I bolted out of bed that Wednesday morning, adrenaline pushing all achy-ness away, while I processed the information. My monthly column for the Highlands Current was due that day. And as you might imagine, I could not process any work information. I needed to be available for Office Hours for business members at Tin Shingle to call in. There was no way I could mentally show up for that call.
I was very confused. My editor at the Highlands Current wanted me to write about our coronavirus diagnosis for their paper. I don’t mind being public about it - most cases of COVID have gone un-discussed. Whispers of neighbors and friends getting it having spread since the beginning of this virus. If there is a stigma, I want it gone. So I will be public about my experience.
My column for the Highlands Current hits the stands Friday and is a simple journal entry timeline of my experience of a few days in the beginning. I couldn’t let the Highlands Current have this headline first (as I do most of the time…they have more childcare than me, so they usually get breaking news out first, while I get more time to marinate on it and write really long articles that exceed traditional print space).
So here is my article announcing my COVID diagnosis.
Why Didn’t You Blog This 2 Weeks Ago?
Testing results can take a really long time. I’ve pursued testing since the summer. When my toddler randomly threw up in the back of my car while napping, I just drove us to Caremount Urgent Care for a test. Caremount actually lost our results. The doctor there told me she didn’t think I should even be testing. It was when the kids Kawasaki sickness was being talked about nationally.
So I got summer test results after 7 days. This time around in December 2020, let’s see…I got achy last Tuesday, learned Wednesday that my partner had it, and Thursday I drove me and the kids to PM Pediatrics for the test. We had already gone through the annoyance that is testing in October when we had much more obvious symptoms of sniffles and asthma cough.
Back in October, for seemingly obvious symptoms, we went to Pulse MD. That experience was horrific. The video call didn’t work, the line to actually get tested was 2hrs in the car, and so far, they have messed up my insurance by not supplying a doctor’s note saying that a doctor recommended the test. This makes no sense - I know - since our doctor’s office visit was covered and the very visit indicates that the doctor recommended it - but the $300 PCR test was not covered, nor the $51 rapid test. Times 2 for my 2 of my children. And Pulse MD’s billing department doesn’t answer the phone or return voicemails. This requirement of the doctor’s note is the fault of our insurance provider: Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
I don’t care about rapid tests anymore. Just give me the real PCR lab result one. For my 2 older kids this round, the results came on Saturday. My middle son was positive; my daughter negative. For me and my toddler, our results would not come until the following Wednesday. My middle son, so far has had mild symptoms, with being achy for a half day, and then gone. His lungs get winded at times.
Meanwhile, the hour I found out about my partner, I contact-traced my own people of where I had been. Two little kids had been to our house - pre-approved friends. I texted their parents, and they all pursued testing. I canceled our babysitter until forever, and she got tested. Everyone’s results came in (negative!) except mine and my toddler’s. I was positive, my toddler negative.
My middle son’s pediatrician called me days later with my middle son’s results (I’d already learned he was positive when PM Pediatrics Urgent Care called). His pediatrician called to tell me he was negative. They read the lab result wrong. This was just one of the annoying things about this process. Needing to be an advocate for myself, to tell my own child’s doctor that they are wrong, and to look at the test again. I had to call the Urgent Care for myself, to confirm for the 5th time, and then call our pediatrician with 110% certainty that I was right. That my middle son was positive.
For the record, the lab result displays are ridiculous. For PM Pediatrics (who we are fans of) - they use LabCorps. The results for a person who is negative say “Negative” next to the child’s name. If the child is positive, this word is nowhere on the lab result. Instead, the results say “Discussed with parent.”
All in all, you have a line item at this urgent care that says “Detected” for a positive result, and “Not Detected” for a negative result.
People Who Are In Denial
Nobody wants this pandemic to exist. I get it. There are many stories people tell me of nurses at urgent cares who lament to parents that parents are overreacting. That people are overreacting. That testing is overdone. That the media isn’t reporting on this latest mutation of the virus. That it’s much lighter than before.
Some people telling their Facebook friends to just eat some Vitamin D and improve their diets, and this whole thing would go away.
No.
Entering into the very personal zone here to say that I’m quite sick of all of these people. There are a handful of people who react to articles at A Little Beacon Blog that promote masks, or not merging houses at Thanksgiving - and they react quite strongly. They use vomit emojis and proudly state that they will have 100 people over for Thanksgiving, and that they don’t believe in masks or social distancing.
I understand that people like this want businesses to flourish and to live. I get it. Believe me. I live for businesses. I live for creativity. I live for freedom to express, and freedom to sell. But I believe in responsibility and being prepared.
Symptoms - Not A Cold. Nothing Like A Cold, But Does Share Symptoms
This sickness - for me - is nothing like a cold. It is a mystery in your body, that once you get, you get to track it in your body, to see where it has traveled today. This is not to say that it does not share symptoms from a cold or flu. It does. But experiencing it is not like experiencing an everyday cold or flu. For me at least. Everyone’s experience with COVID may be very different.
For me, it is tracking a weird thing in my body that moves around during the day or night, invading one area to see what it can do, then leaving that area, then maybe returning to that area a day or two later.
The first Tuesday I got symptoms, I also got my moon cycle early. Two weeks early. This never happens. As achy as my bones were - like with a mild flu - I had the worst cramps I had had since before my pregnancies. Towards the end of the day, my hips felt like they were moving apart again - like they did during contractions.
During my 3rd pregnancy, I had nerve pain in my hip joint. Hauntings of this pain happen every cycle, when my hormones kick in and soften everything (thanks Beacon Pilates and for teaching me about that, and beBahkti Yoga for introducing me to the pelvic floor occupational therapist who teaches about this!).
At first I worried about my hormones. Then I looked up “estrogen and coronavirus” and found that some studies have been done to measure if estrogen is harnessing that immune over-reaction of the immune system in people known as the “cytokine storm”. Some men in studies have been having estrogen patches to calm this storm. For the first time, I welcomed, embraced, and celebrated my cycle. “Stay as long as you like!” I told my cycle.
Each day my symptoms are different. Achy is gone now, and I mainly deal with lung and head sensations. I’ll bullet point to keep this part simple:
Achy in back and behind knee caps.
For my son on his Day 1, his legs were very achy at 2am, and he could not get out of bed until 7am to come get me. I gave him Tylonal and he slept until noon, and awoke feeling better. For two days after that, his little lungs were winded. He has retained energy.
Cramps from very early cycle that started the first day of symptoms.
Lungs feeling like I ran along a polluted street. I’m a runner. So I like my breathing. I’m also asthmatic, and impacted by allergies. One morning, at 4am, I woke up to my lungs feeling like I had just run along Central Park West, which if you’ve ever done that, is a bad idea. It’s filled with car pollution, and you will feel like you’ve smoked a lot of cigarettes the day before. I don’t smoke. But I did try cigarettes in college, so I know what that feels like.
Head feeling like water rushed up into my brain, then drained back out again, and kept doing that. All day. Have you ever gotten water up your nose? Have you ever gotten a cold head rush from ice cream? It’s kind of like that. Odd. A sensation.
Sinus pressure. Happened after the water-up-the-nose feeling. There was no mucus (so far), but my entire head became swollen.
Sore throat. Both my partner and I had hints of a sore throat sometimes, but not full blown. Neither of us had mucus.
Asthma cough for my toddler. While my toddler tested negative, he randomly got his asthma cough and was very clingly and moody (those are translations for kids who can’t speak their feelings, but don’t feel well. He needed nubulized while I was in the achy stage. I have since put him on Singulair, a daily lung management pill, because all of my kids and myself have asthma-cough, and I’d rather it not get out of control with COVID here.
Dizzy. Dizzy like morning sickness, but not always solved with food. In February 2020, I was so sick that I couldn’t get out of bed without fainting. My middle son was so sick that his legs would not hold him, and hurt him. For days. Maybe 2 weeks. I tested for antibodies back then, but had none. There was no test for COVID back then.
No runny nose. No mucus. No nothing like that. Just odd sensations of pain in my body. Like behind my collar bone one day. But yes to sinus pressure.
Taste and smell remained. So far! Neither my partner nor myself nor my son lost our sense of taste or smell. Thank goodness! So far.
Tingling in my chest. Like butterflies in your tummy, but in your chest. This is exacerbated by me getting excited. And I get excited a lot. The day or hours after I feel tingling in my chest, my chest might close up and get tight. Asthma. That means, wheezing, and needing to take an inhaler. No big deal. Lots of people are asthmatic and take inhalers. Right? Right. But asthmatics know that they don’t want to deal with this, or have their lungs flare up randomly.
Oxygen at 94 at 4am in the morning. On the oxygen reader - which is a common thing to measure for asthmatics and people with this virus - you chart your oxygen flowing through your blood. The best is 100. The lowest is 95. If you hit 94 and below, medical professionals like you to seek medical help. Maybe at 4am, all of our oxygen is low - I don’t know. I’m not in the habit of measuring. But I measure all the time now.
The Random Heart Attack
My partner’s best friend - two of them actually - attended a funeral in Ohio. Twenty people came away with COVID-19. Some people were hospitalized. No one has died yet. Yay! My partner’s best friend struggled and recovered. His other best friend tested negative, while his wife tested positive. Last week, that friend had a heart attack. He says he was feeling tired for 2 months. After the heart attack, he was saved and had a stint put in. He feels much better. During this time, he tested positive for COVID-19.
My worst fear is the random heart attacks and strokes from this virus.
Not Wishing This Virus On Anyone
There are some people who live in Beacon who say on their Facebook that they don’t mind if they get this virus. I don’t wish this virus on anyone. Not myself. Not my children. Not deniers. Nobody knows this virus. When I got the chicken pox in 3rd grade, that was normal. You got chicken pox. I rubbed my first skin bump onto my best friend (we agreed), and she got it too. We wanted to play together.
Polio had a season. The vaccination didn’t always exist. It was polio season sometimes. If you got polio, you had a good chance of having complications for life. My grandmother had polio. She had some pretty painful arthritis after that.
Don’t be stubborn. Keep you distance. Say hello. Go shopping. Go eating. But be smart. The most selfish thing you can do is to say that people should be taking Vitamin D and watching their diets and leading better lives.
Don’t contribute to hospitals that fill up. That’s the number you need to watch. And if your friends are randomly taking their inhalers.
Don’t do this, man. Don’t be this person who is so incredibly selfish, that you head is so far in the sand, that you are helping no one, and hurting your business friends. Be smart. If you want financial relief for businesses, and to save their money and savings from being drained, then fight for it. But don’t do it while denying health and promoting daydream conspiracies.
Living With COVID
So far, living with COVID has been manageable - for my own body and my partner’s body. I am hugely grateful to my body composition - DNA - amount of COVID we got - I don’t know. I do know that sickness and disease takes your body, and there is only so much you can do to control it. So even though I am taking the vitamins - D, C, Zink, Elderberry syrup - these did not - in my opinion - defeat this virus in my body. I do think they help for sure. And I do activities to help my body stay strong for sure. But taking these things alone don’t solve it. Your own body is the factor.
I stretch every day. I usually jog every day. In quarantine, I jogged about every other day in my driveway and yard. I have continued to stretch every. Stretching definitely helped with my achy symptoms. Because I stretch every day, my body is used to it, and stiffens up if I don’t stretch. This is a habit you want to get into :) Stretching is good!
For stretching ideas, start taking Yoga and Pilates. There are some good moves in those models. See A Little Beacon Blog’s Fitness Section of the Business Directory for ideas.
I did shovel when I couldn’t jog. Hopefully this was OK for my lungs. I just wanted the fresh air circulating through my body as much as possible.
I listen to music. Different albums or songs to keep my mood up, or to coast into an emotional mood to relax.
Moving Forward
Work-wise, I’m pretty nervous about who is going to want to see me in person. Part of my job is taking photos. Will any store want to have me in? I will wear a face shield!
Personally, will any friend or neighbor feel comfortable with us around? Some people take forever to test negative. My partner has already tested negative (yay!). While my chest is still tingly, and I get dizzy spells, I suppose I plan to take me and the kids to get tested for hopefully negative results - and some antibodies! - next week.
If I have antibodies, I will be loading up on spinach and cheeseburgers, in order to donate blood with antibodies, if that is needed. Usually my iron is too low to donate. Will try to change that.
