catching covid – eunice’s perspective
On the morning of October 7, 2020, I was at work when I found out that our older daughter may have been exposed to someone with Covid outside of school. I cancelled all my afternoon appointments, picked up our two girls from school and headed immediately to the urgent care to get them tested.
I felt completely healthy myself but was worried that Tori may have gotten Covid even though she wasn’t showing any symptoms. As I sat in the exam room with the girls waiting for the results, I began to think of alternative plans for childcare and my work schedule if the worst had happened. Finally, the doctor came into our room and said, “Well…good news is that both of your girls tested negative for Covid.” He then turns to me and says, “Now this is interesting, the bad news is that you tested positive for Covid.”
My heart dropped. The first thought in my head was “How in the world? Did I just hear what he said?!?” I had prepared myself for the bad news that my child had Covid. I never imagined that I would be the one that tested positive for it. I had been so careful to stay safe and we all wore masks at work. We didn’t have any clients enter the building and none of my staff had gotten sick. I was confused how I could have gotten it.
I rarely take off work and still show up even on the worst days as long as I can function. When I was pregnant in the past and beyond nauseous, I still showed up at work and worked my full day. It is not like me to quit on the people and pets that depend on me. Even though I felt fine at the moment, I had to follow the rules and cancelled my work days for the next 2 weeks to quarantine. I felt terrible, I felt like I was failing everything and everyone just because I got Covid and couldn’t do anything about it. I was also quite annoyed that Covid had put a wrench in everything (how little I knew then). I called Ben right away and let him know. I ended up quarantined in our room for the next few days and it was so hard not to be able to help Ben and interact with him and the girls. The thought of going 14 days without seeing my family in person was unbearable. I’ve never gone a day that we’ve been together in the same place without kissing and hugging the girls multiple times a day and telling them how much I love them. I also felt horrible for Ben because he was working full time from home while trying to take care of me, all the animals, and the girls who we had to keep home from school for a few weeks due to me being positive for Covid.
I never had a fever. I did have a very mild runny nose for a few days which eventually led to some coughing and lethargy but it was manageable. I spent a lot of time sleeping and resting in bed. A few days later, Ben started having signs of Covid. I remember the relief we all had to be all together again. Unfortunately, Ben got worse and I remember staying awake at night listening to him coughing his lungs out and worrying about him. Ben would tell me not to worry and that the coughing wasn’t worse than bronchitis bouts he had in the past. He told me he was ok and would let me know if he wasn’t. I remember spending almost a week in bed with Ben. We were both so exhausted from being sick and barely had energy to move ourselves around the house. The girls were so good and pretty much took care of themselves.
A little over a week after Ben’s symptoms started, he had terrible coughing fits. I think it was a Sunday morning around 2 or 3am when we checked his oxygen levels and they were in the lower 90s. That evening, Ben let me take him to the hospital without a fight (he usually doesn’t cooperate with me when I try to take him to the doctor) and I knew he was in really bad shape. During the drive I could see him struggling for every breath and getting fatigued just trying to stay present there with me.
