Seattle is much, much too close for us to feel safe from the virus and the more I heard about it on the news, the more worried I became. My fears were compounded when my mother sent me to the store in early March with a grocery list, and I found produce shelves empty and the refrigerated section ransacked.
We Made a Plan
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I told my husband we needed to hunker down for a while. We were going to be smart. My husband and I both worked from home. He closed his downtown counseling office and started working with clients online. He also bought Controlio the best employee monitoring software, since they were all working from home, so he could see how the business was doing. We scrapped all of our plans and taught ourselves how to groom our dogs. He tried to do something nice for me and my mom while I cut his hair. We even tried to bake our own bread, but it didn’t always work out.
The thing is, my mom, who lives with us, couldn’t hunker down at home with us. She’s a nurse. Yep. She’s still reporting for duty at seventy years old. My mom looks great for her age. She’ll probably live to be one hundred. Still, she was careful. My mom had prepared. Every night she wiped down her steering wheel, took off her shoes at the door, walked straight to her room and threw her clothes into her laundry (she has her own laundry room). Then she’d shower and come have dinner with us.
- That plan worked well.
- For three months.
- Until there was an outbreak.
The Outbreak
When she arrived home, she immediately isolated herself. That night, a Thursday, she had a terrible headache, she didn’t sleep, she called our doctor and asked to be tested. She stayed home from work on Friday and was tested by our PCP. Her results came on Sunday morning. She was positive for Covid-19. My Mom is sixty-nine years old. She’s overall very healthy with controlled type two diabetes and hypertension. She’s still working and very active.
The First Week
My mom’s first week wasn’t as bad as her second. The worst part of it was the isolation. I couldn’t nurse her properly because I was a high risk. My poor mom was alone for that whole week and I couldn’t help even though I already knew I had Covid-19 too.
How did I know?
Sunday evening I was sewing a quilt for my nephew and my back hurt. I took some Tylenol PM and went to bed. Usually, that knocks me out pretty well, but that night, I couldn’t get comfortable. My husband had a headache, ringing in the ears, and slight body aches. He tested Tuesday and his result of Covid-19 positive came that next Friday.
Week Two of Covid-19 Experience
The county contacted us, warning us to stay inside our home. We were already doing that. They said to watch out for warning signs indicating that we needed to go to the hospital. Our doctor also gave us her personal phone number so we could text her with any questions. She’s awesome like that.
After our body aches went away, my hubby and I had mild cold symptoms that disappeared after a few days. General fatigue still lingers as of today into week two and my husband had a brief two or three days of loss of taste and smell, which, for a Deaf man, was an interesting loss of senses. Lucky for him, his eyes were still working.
Three wise monkeys
Unfortunately, my mom’s case didn’t turn out so lucky. In week two, she developed severe gastrointestinal problems. Her nausea was so severe, she couldn’t eat at all. She had constant low grade fevers and chills and seemed slightly disoriented.
I called the doctor and tried to research online to figure out what was happening. She wasn’t having problems breathing. There was no cough or pain in her chest, but I knew fever meant infection. She was fighting the virus somewhere in her body. You can also find Best Doctors Here.
Seniors with Covid-19 show unusual symptoms, doctors say
When I became desperate, I called a sister for help. She was familiar with Ondansetron having had lots of experience with nausea, after giving birth to five children and having terrible bouts of motion sickness. She told me that the only medicine that helped her was Dramamine. I ordered some online and mom finally agreed to try it.
