I’m Convinced That My Family Already Had COVID-19
By: A.J. Kay
Tags: Wellness, Humanity, Current Events, Health, Narrative

Ten days later, I woke my 12-year-old autistic daughter up for school and her head felt like a furnace. She had a cough for a couple of days prior but nothing that seemed too concerning. Paige’s cough lingered and, before that morning, I figured Charly probably just caught a touch of whatever was going around.

A text to my boyfriend about Charly’s condition.

I was stunned at how high her temperature was and immediately called her doctor. Charly’s sensory processing disorder makes it hard for her to eat and she was complaining of nausea and no appetite. She is already underweight so I wanted to get ahead of any GI problems that might be brewing.

She remained fairly stable for a few days, but there were distinct differences between this sickness and others we had experienced in the past.

First, our family doesn’t get a lot of fevers. Or rather, I don’t take my children’s temperature unless they have a very obvious fever. I’m more of a “the fever has a job to do and I’m going to let it run its course” kind of mom. Unless my kid feels super-duper hot, I won’t dig out the thermometer.

I needed it so frequently during this spate of illness that I kept misplacing it. That damn thermometer, which had sat at the bottom of my medicine cabinet for almost two years, felt like a little stick of solid gold.

I kept needing to be reassured that her temp wasn’t too high.

An update for the boyfriend.

Once Charly got sick, as a precaution, I went on a binge, disinfecting my house. Every surface got bleached and every non-surface got Lysol-ed.

Later that day….

Aaaaaand #3 went down.

I was honestly stunned when I got the call that my ten-year-old, Matty, was being sent home with a fever. Five of us live together in close quarters so it’s not unusual for us to share sicknesses but, typically, just a couple of us get infected at a time and, even when we share illness, it doesn’t spread so quickly.

This bug, whatever it was, had legs and I was immediately concerned about my little one, who as I mentioned before, was born premature and is particularly susceptible to lung infections.

I took Matty to the doctor the next day. When she gets sick, we don’t have the luxury of waiting to see if it gets worse. Her lungs can deteriorate rapidly and this wouldn’t be the first cold/flu to land her in the hospital on oxygen.

At her visit, her doctor prescribed her prednisone — just like Paige, an anti-viral, and more albuterol. They also did a rapid flu test, which was negative. The doctor said she didn’t like the way her lungs sounded already and couldn’t believe it had only been a day since the onset of symptoms.

Update for the boyfriend.

And to add insult to injury…

I couldn’t stay angry. That was the night that my youngest came into my bedroom, struggling to get air. Like Paige, this also happened after the first dose of her prednisone.

She has a pulse-oximeter so I took her downstairs, gave her an albuterol breathing treatment with her nebulizer, and kept the pulse-ox on her all night. She stayed above 94% for most of the night but, dipped down more than I would have liked.

We slept on the couch together.

The thing that unnerved me the most is that Matty is my little fighter and it takes a lot to get that girl worked up. Her obvious fear and anxiety told me that she must be feeling pretty bad.

The following morning, the girls were better, not best. Good, not great. And I wasn’t yet ready to work. The fevers persisted, the coughs persisted, and I figured that it must just be a terrible year for the flu.

At least they are cute when they’re sick. :)

I had been unintentionally self-quarantining and social-distancing for the better part of three weeks at this point. I hadn’t seen my boyfriend in probably two weeks and work wasn’t in the cards.

The night before both girls returned to school, I began feeling unwell. As unusual as it is that I take my girls’ temperature, it’s even more unusual when I take my own.

I was so hot that my eyes had a burning sensation — a feeling that Charly had described to me during her fevers.

So I took the opportunity to leave Paige with my littles and take my boyfriend upon an unconventional fever treatment.

A text with the boyfriend who recommended an ice bath for my fever, instead of the standard acetaminophen or NSAID treatment.

School resumed for the little ones the next day and the ice bath must’ve “worked” because I felt better the next morning, too. Except for that one fever, I never got sick like my kids.

This was the day Arizona announced its first official case of COVID-19.