It seemed inevitable that we’d get Covid. My husband and I watched as numbers continued to rise. Every time there was a spike, we doubled down on our precautions. But it wasn’t enough.
Now, I want to share my family’s story. Because what I did not expect was that the mental impact was so much more than any physical symptoms.
I want to make it clear: we were very, very lucky. More fortunate than a lot of people.
My husband, both kids and myself all came down with different symptoms at the same time. At first, it seemed like a weird coincidence. I took the baby to the doctor, thinking he had strep throat. The doctor didn’t think it was strep. He swabbed the baby’s nose and said, “I’m 90% sure it’s NOT Covid.”
I called in sick to work since a family member was awaiting a Covid test. The next morning, after a rough night with a sleepless baby, my husband and I started feeling worse. Our toddler was fine.
We waited for the results, again thinking it must be a weird coincidence. The toddler was still acting normal. The baby was slightly feverish and very tired.
Two days later, my husband and I still felt poorly. We had experienced all of the symptoms listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The baby’s results still weren’t back, but the rest of the family got the tests.
One by one, all of our Covid tests came back positive.
We continued to experience rather mild symptoms. But my brain was in overdrive. I couldn’t stop worrying.
What if we exposed someone else, who might not get such mild symptoms? What if we exposed someone else, who then gave it to an immunocompromised relative? Every night, every time I woke up with the baby (which was often) I prayed that we didn’t hurt someone else, even accidentally.
After 10 days, our Covid isolation ended, and my husband and I started slowly feeling like ourselves again. The toddler was fine after 24 hours. It took the baby about a week.
Part of me still wonders, why us? We took all the precautions. We were only around a handful of people without wearing masks. Everyone else, we visited outside and socially-distanced. We only went to the grocery store – just my husband or me. We didn’t eat in restaurants, just did carryout. We didn’t go to the mall, the movies or the gym. We turned down multiple party invitations. We even watched church virtually. We wore masks, washed our hands and used what felt like a year’s worth of hand sanitizer every month.
At the end of the day, we made it through. Everyone is fine. But all of the “what ifs” were scarier than the actual illness. We’ll still take the same precautions. We’ll hope and pray we don’t get it again… or spread it to anyone else.
