COVID-19… Not Just For The Elderly

As of April 6th, I tested positive for COVID-19. 

We pretty much assumed I was going to test positive. As most of you already knew, Leen stayed home from work on March 24th with a cough and fever. Since she works at a psychiatric hospital, they told her to go get tested.

On April Fools Day, Leen got the call saying she tested positive. We were both shocked. Even after the call we couldn’t believe it. We thought it was some sick April Fools prank. Luckily enough, my last day at Sabin was on the 23rd of March. So, once Leen went to get tested we both self quarantined ourselves and wouldn’t let anyone near us. Through the next (what felt like forever) eight days, we still joked about the whole thing and both agreed we were probably being dramatic… spoiler alert. We weren’t.

The doctor that called Leen, told her that I should assume I have it. The rules (for me) were to stay home in quarantine and once Leen was 100% symptom free, THEN my two weeks of staying home would start. Granted, I don’t have work right now, but hell… that would be three plus weeks. I called my family doctor to get his opinion. He informed me he did the COVID-19 test in the parking lot of his office and wanted me to stop in to have one done. I still think it was a waste of a test, but either way, at least I’m 100% sure now.

Once I arrived, I called the office and notified them I was outside. I was the only one in the parking lot. Cars kept passing by. My doctor came outside and he was decked out in all his protective wear. A face shield, glasses, a mask, a gown, and gloves. It was rather intimidating and slightly embarrassing, as I mentioned above, there were cars outside passing by and staring.

The test… they take this swab (q-tip looking thing) and jam it up your nose to the back of your throat. It feels like its stabbing/scraping you. I’m pretty sure it made my eyes water. It definitely made me cough and feel like I needed to sneeze. The test was not fun, however, don’t let this scare you away from being tested. It was unpleasant, but I’m being dramatic. It was worth having done.

Onto the symptoms… Leen’s symptoms were a fever (100.7 was the high), chills, a cough, loss of taste/smell, and shortness of breath if she walked around the house too much. As for me, my symptoms were fairly different. Normally, I would have blamed most of them on allergies and not drinking enough water, but looking back, it obviously wasn’t. I was very congested. I never had a fever, but I was coughing a lot. There was a day or two where my stomach didn’t seem right, parts of my body ached, and I just felt blah. Two weeks ago I was super tired. Like, so tired that I pretty much just slept/napped for 48 hours. We got extremely lucky and as of yesterday, we are both officially clear!

As much as we both joked about this (as I believe mostly everyone has at some point), it’s not a joke. It’s very serious. Luckily for us, we only had minor symptoms, but people are dying every day. Don’t take the social distancing for granted. Listen to it. Practice it. Everyone should assume they are carrying this virus. The symptoms seem to vary from person to person and some don’t even show symptoms, but you can still spread it. Let’s protect our high risk family members during this time and STAY HOME!

Don’t hoard the TP or the sanitizers… just take what you need. Let’s help our first responders, nurses, doctors, postal workers, pharmacy workers, grocery store workers, and all other essential personnel with donations, flattening the curve, and if you’re crafty, help make some masks! I have (as I’m sure we all do) plenty of friends and family that are in the medical field. So this is extremely important to me.

With everyone banding together and helping each other out, we can and we will get through this!

Now, Leen and I are counting down the days until we can officially donate blood and plasma. We’ve heard varying timelines for this, so we are contacting professionals to find out the actual information.

Thank you for reading my story… and more importantly, thank you to all of our family and friends who reached out over the past month. Whether it was via phone, walking by, or dropping off dinners and groceries, you are all amazing!

Stay safe out there and PLEASE stay home, avoid people whenever you can, and for the love of God, wash your hands!