My Family Survived Covid-19
The year 2020 came in with a bang, introducing Covid-19 into our lives. An extremely contagious virus spreading like the wildfires of the California coast, changing the way we live and breathe, literally burning down the way we normally live our lives. My mom was the first victim of this potentially deadly virus in March of 2020. She contracted the virus the weekend Governor DeWine shut down the state of Ohio. Our family is in the restaurant business and Mike DeWine had made a decision that would affect all of our livelihoods. Our local Pizzeria and Café was forced to shut its doors for indoor dining; we were expected to survive on carry-out orders alone.
While the state-wide, mandatory, shut-down, coincided with my mother’s illness, no one had witnessed a “real” case of Covid-19, other than the stories on the nightly news. Suffering from hypertension and borderline diabetes, my dad was the most afraid of the virus. My mom quarantined for 21 long days with Netflix and a few brave room service deliveries from yours truly, in the privacy of her own bedroom. Ten days into the sickness my mom decided a trip to the ER was deemed necessary. The doctors told her she had a very bad sinus infection and prescribed some heavy antibiotics, sending back to her solitary isolation. My tearful mom sensed this was more than sinuses and remained quarantined until her illness had passed.
In May 2020 my mother took an antigen test verifying what she had suspected all along, she was full of the Covid-19 antibodies, confirming a recent infection. We were all surprised by her results and immediately subjected our arms to the needle, which would prove or deny whether any other family members had suffered a silent Covid-19 infection along side of her. Everyone in the family tested negative. Puzzled that this most contagious virus hadn’t made its way into our noses and lungs, we all felt a sense of Supermanism. We all felt as though we had faced our Kryptonite.
My mom recovered and went back to life as before, with the exception of the ongoing mandatory quarantine. We all became a little less fearful of the virus, including my dad. Our guards were let down and a little less sanitizer filled our dry, cracked, red hands. Our restaurant reopened in May, as we struggled to bring our customers back. Eventually, people seemed to trickle their way in, for a warm meal and an icy cold drink; life was returning to semi-normal.
In September, schools were reopened and my brother’s and I were excited at the prospect of going back to school and seeing our friends. This short-lived excitement was cut short, as the continuing spread caused my university to re-visit remote learning. My two brothers were in and out of quarantine so many different times, we all lost count. I ironically called the virus a joke.
Anxiety brewed in the ensuing months and depression was close behind. The lock downs and shut downs were causing mixed emotions in my household. My dad became a little more afraid again, even though my optimistic mother’s illness had long left our memories. Young people were being accused of not caring and spreading this virus around; this was actually not far from the truth. My brother was quarantined as a basketball teammate had tested positive for Covid-19. The virus was making it’s mark once again.
While my brother’s senior year of basketball was being threatened, my sophomore year as a college cheerleader was about to be threatened as well. Two members of my cheer team tested positive for the virus and I was about to be the next victim in line. I was dreadfully tired, more so than usual. My brother and I were sleeping in shifts of 12 hours or more. Fear, once again, was living in our household. We were not Superman and the Kryptonite was bringing us down.
The headaches were the most unbearable, along with the loss of concentration and the inability to stay awake. This made school work nearly impossible and going out was no longer a complaint of mine. My stomach was unable to hold anything down as I spent hours lying on the cold bathroom tile, praying for relief. I just wanted the virus to pass, it was no longer a joke but very real. Two of my other siblings tested positive along with my dad. Everyone lost their sense of smell and taste and we were no longer allowed or able to go to work.
My oldest sibling had just became an RN and was working in ICU on the “Covid” floor of our nearest hospital in town; she too, tested positive for Covid-19. This virus was spreading through my family like the initial new’s reports had warned it would. Covid-19 was threatening my family and we were all helpless to the assault. The biggest savior during this attack was the ability of my mother to take care of us all; it was if this was the master plan all along. She had suffered early on so that she would be strong enough to see us through our own renditions of this infectious virus. My mom’s soft hands and soothing voice gave us hope and direction.
Each suffering from our own unique ailments, all members of my family recovered without any lingering conditions. I still feel very tired but I am improving every day. I feel a sense of Supermanism again, as if I have defeated one of my biggest enemies. According to the most current research, you cannot get the virus more than once. This fills me with a huge sense of relief. I am just glad that my entire family was able to recover without any life-threatening close calls. I will never again refer to this virus as a joke and I will still promote anything I can, to minimize the spread.
This story is content worthy of a best-selling fiction novel! Who could have predicted online college, standing 6 feet apart, masks, and the loss of your taste and smell? The year 2020 has been one I will never forget. I am barely two decades into this fight and have witnessed things my parents have only read about in a science fiction best selling novel. I’ve been locked down, shut in, and forced to live in a strange new world. I’m looking forward to the year 2021, hoping it can surpass the Covid-19 scare! The year 2020 came in with a bang: I’m looking forward to a nice quiet entrance into the year 2021!
