“My Whole Family Got COVID-19”

My whole family got COVID-19, Pull up a chair, I’ll tell you all about it.

Of course, my family got COVID. After an already-crazy lockdown (in which we had to make not one, but two emergency visits to the hospital for our normally healthy kids), it was the next logical step.

Of course, the timing could not have been more perfect either… in the very same week, all of our kids were due to finally (finally!) head back to school, our youngest son (one of our 5-year-old twins) began coughing and coughing.

This was strange, but not super-out-of-the-ordinary for a little guy, so I dosed him up on cough meds and hoped for the best.

He didn’t have a fever or a snotty nose, but just to make sure he was good to send back to school, I took him to the doctor. The doc examined him and determined he just had allergies. But another week went by, and after loads of allergy meds followed by steroid meds, his coughing hadn’t subsided at all (the meds did work, but they’d wear off and we’d be back where we started).

Then my hubby and I both developed mildly sore throats and were coughing a little at night too. Not serious coughs mind you – rather the kind you might get after accidentally inhaling a small dust particle: the kind that sounds like you’re faking a cough to get out of going on some lame school trip.

Except, ironically for us, after more than 100 days of being locked down 24/7 with eachother and our kids, my hubby and I would have paid good money to go on any such trip. We’d even have been happy to get thrown in the cargo hold and left there for the entire trip if it meant some time alone!

But back to the Corona chronicles…

Looking back or looking in from the outside, you might think we should have suspected we may have contracted the dreaded virus, but it really didn’t cross our minds. While the cases in our province began to soar, we were looking out for the warning signs: fevers, chronic tiredness, headaches, runny tummies, tight chests, and the sudden loss of taste and smell.

All we had (at first) was the classic start of a very average winter cold.

Still, thankfully, because of our son’s persistent cough not getting better, we went back to the doctor. Now that it wasn’t just our son with symptoms, the doc suspected we had somehow contracted Covid-19 and told us to take the next 2 weeks to all isolate at home.

I stayed, seated across from her for a while longer, just staring at her… she probably thought I had fallen into some COVID-induced oxygen-deprived catatonic lull, but I was really just waiting for her to rip off her mask and shout “JUST KIDDING!”

It didn’t happen. The doc was very serious. No driving anywhere, no school for no kids, no shopping, no stepping foot outside our home for another 14 days.

Our kids were ecstatic, of course. Another two weeks with mom and dad, ever-plummeting parenting standards, and ever-expanding screen-time! All five kids (ages 11 – 5) felt moderately fine, except for the same cough that they managed to baton-change between four of them over the course of the next week.

Due to us all having no comorbidities and being low-risk with mild symptoms, we were told to not get tested.

Still, we were itching to know for sure (we knew nobody else who had the virus and still suspected we might just have a cold), so we sent my husband to get tested. Two days later, we got the results: COVID Positive.

Around the same time, our symptoms progressed to include a weird kind of breathlessness. Both my husband and I felt like we had suddenly become incredibly unfit. Even the simple act of making the kids sarmies at lunch would leave me needing to sit down and catch my breath.

This was scary, and it remained so for just over a week.

Still, by far our biggest fear was the fear that we might have infected others unknowingly. We called everyone we’d been in contact with the week before we’d gone into quarantine, and thankfully, none of them have developed any symptoms.

Although we’re very grateful to have been struck so mildly by the virus, still, the effects have lingered far longer than we’d have thought they would have.  It’s now been a little over four weeks since our homegrown patient zero started coughing.

He coughed for a full three weeks. I coughed for a full two, and two of my other sons are still coughing. I’m well over my 14-day quarantine and am no longer infectious, but I still feel breathless every now and then, and both my husband and I experienced a marked decrease in our cognitive ability too – it’s getting better but for most of our time in quarantine, our concentration and memory was as lacking as a goldfish’s.

This one’s for the little guys and girls, the little hero’s that we have forgotten to thank. The children. COVID-19 will forever be part of their childhood growing up.  Shout out to the kids

So if you’re a young family, and suspect you or your child may have Covid-19, here are my top tried-and-positively-tested tips:

1. Don’t panic. Over 80% of all cases are mild. You will almost certainly be fine.
2. Rather be safe than sorry. If anyone in your family develops any signs of a cold, cough, or flu – lock it down. Isolate and stay at home.
3. If you suspect you may have Covid-19, go for a test if you have any comorbidities or are over the age of 55. If, like us, you’re discouraged from getting tested, stay at home in any case – at least until everyone in your family has spent at least 10 days in isolation since the onset of any symptoms.
4. If you or your doctor suspect you may have Covid-19, or you test COVID-Positive, be sure to contact everyone you can who you came in contact within the previous week. Tell them that you’ve been advised to let them know that you have suspected/confirmed Covid-19. They should then be on the lookout for any symptoms themselves, and self-isolate at the first sign of any symptoms.
5. Load up on Vitamin C and Zinc, soak up a little sunshine when it’s possible, and rest as much as you can.
6. After you’ve recovered, don’t drop your guard (or that mask). With the remote possibility of contracting the virus again, regular hand washing, social distancing, and mask-wearing is still the way to go, for all of us, all of the time.

(*Written by: Julie – Lifestyle Editor.)

Do you have any COVID-19 stories of your own or someone you know which you would like to share?

Please let us know in the comments below.

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