Living with #COVID19 (Part One)

I usually don’t post about myself but I thought it would be important to share what “Living With COVID-19” from my perspective is. You see, I was so excited when travel started commencing again. I got a new client in CA and I could visit with family at the same time, win win or so I thought.

I arrived June 24th, uneventful. Met with client, caught up with family, kids, grandkids and several friends, mind you, wearing a mask as a precaution. 4th of July was great, grandkids and siblings enjoyed the fireworks that we could see from surrounding neighborhoods. Looked like the whole sky lit up at different times, a great light show (and did I mention FREE?)!!

Life was good and then everything stopped abruptly when my sister called to tell us she tested positive for COVID-19 and that we would have to watch for symptoms. I have been staying with my brother and sister-in-law, so we all three tried to figure out how much contact we had with her and shrugged our shoulders and said to ourselves nothing to worry about, no symptoms here.

How wrong we were. A few days later my brother woke up with a migraine, no big deal right, that’s not COVID-19 right, he gets these regularly, WRONG!! The headache was first, then the chills and overall weakness. His wife took him to ER where they gave him a breathing treatment, required COVID-19 test, prescription for antibiotics and sent him home to recover. Apparently, if you can recover at home, it is the best for you, the hospitals are understaffed (in the COVID-19 ward, it’s two nurses per patient) and not enough beds. The next morning, I see my brother in the kitchen and he tells me he can’t breathe, and my sister-in-law was coughing all night, so we rush to the hospital. They admit him for severe pneumonia and administer COVID-19 test, chest x-rays, blood work for my sister-in-law and send her home to recover.

Oh my symptoms, I had a mega migraine for a about a week while all this was going on. I kept telling myself, I don’t have “IT” because I get migraines all the time. Well on the 5th day of migraines, my chest started to hurt, I coughed when I breathed in and had a fever. Off to the ER, where I was diagnosed with severe dehydration, Pneumonia and COVID-19. How did they know so fast before the actual test came back? Well, they take blood work and I had the COVID-19 markers and close family members who tested positive already. So, two IVs, and antibiotics and about 7 hours later I got to go home to recover.

I have to tell you this was the worst pain I have felt in a long time. The antibiotics I had to take made everything smell and taste the same. But, I have the best care at home, my sister-in-law is a Home Health Nurse, and even though she was struggling with symptoms of her own, she monitored my vitals, brought me food and medicine.

My brother is still in the hospital at the writing of this post. The doctors put him on a ventilator and an induced coma for better treatment of his lungs. It has been a daily vigil from home because they allow NO Visitors. We were calling the nurses for his status regularly. It has always been news of improvement. They even gave him Convalescent Plasma of recent recovered COVID-19 patients and he showed improvement.

I will post again with a follow up soon, I have been told it’s a long recovery for those of us whose lungs were affected with the Coronavirus. Thank you to St. Mary’s Medical Center in Apple Valley, CA for all their efforts in taking care of COVID-19 patients especially our family.

#WEARAMASK #SOCIALDISTANCING #pandemic #covid #coronavirus #quarantine #stayhome #virus #staysafe #love #stayathome #quarantinelife #stayhealthy #isolation #washyourhands

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