Sick with COVID-19

A year into the pandemic, a year of lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing, and obsessive hand washing and mask wearing, we have tested positive for COVID-19. The invisible enemy finally got us… In addition to feeling sick, I feel upset and frustrated for having failed at avoiding the coronavirus despite all of the sacrifices. I spent Noah’s baby year mainly alone at home following the rules no matter how hard it was. I haven’t seen my family in over a year. I have not travelled, visited my home country or even taken the bus for over a year! The only calculated risk we took was to send Maia to nursery school for three hours a day to support her development. But only nine days after the Christmas break there was an outbreak of COVID-19. Her “bubble” was closed and the children sent home to isolate for ten days. Maia was healthy and happy and we hoped to have dodged the bullet. But on day seven of the isolation I came down with high fever of +38.6 Celsius and even before the test result I knew I had got it.

Although I couldn’t prevent getting ill, I at least find comfort in knowing that we’ve done all we could to prevent spreading the coronavirus further. My husband and I are in our mid-thirties, fit and healthy, and as such not “vulnerable” to this potentially fatal virus and so we should be able to fight it off. But it can be very dangerous to those with underlying health conditions or to the elderly. During Maia’s isolation and before I developed symptoms we had our housekeeper still coming to work, but as soon as I started feeling ill, we asked her to stay at home and to get tested. Luckily she did not catch it.

And now I have to let out some steam because I’m just really, really angry about all this (sorry). It’s really hard not to feel resentful towards those who behave recklessly and contribute to the spread of the virus. Hard not to feel resentful towards those flying around Europe holidaying and visiting family. It’s so selfish to think that just because the virus may not be dangerous to you (not you, but some hypothetical person), you can risk catching it because this is exactly how the virus spreads. And even though my husband and I are not particularly vulnerable to the virus, as parents of two small kids we’ve been through hell and back in the last week, isolating while being both sick and looking after a sick baby and trying to entertain a toddler. I even feel resentful towards those who get to actually rest while sick. Maybe three days of Netflix and chill is your idea of fighting COVID-19, but it’s far from my reality. Not only did I still have two children to look after, there was no pause in the cycle of household chores and cooking – quite the opposite since we had to cancel our domestic help. I know this can sound overly dramatic because it could be so much worse, I’m well aware of that (and don’t mean to offend anyone). But if you’ve ever spent two weeks quarantining in the house with young kids, doing laundry, changing nappies and cooking meals when sick yourself, getting up every few hours through the night with a sick baby when all you want to do is to sleep, well then you know what I’m talking about. It’s not pretty.

I was the first in my family to develop symptoms after we’d already been isolating for a week. On Monday morning I woke up with a severe headache and feeling exhausted, but I put it down to maybe finally getting my first postpartum period. I had also been exhausted the day before, but I didn’t think much of it because to be honest I’m always tired. But by lunchtime I was shivering and feeling really, really poorly. By the time I had the kids fed and down for their nap I could barely stand up. I took my temperature with the kids’ thermometer, +38.6 Celsius. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had fever and it completely wiped me out. For the first time (ever?) I had to ask my husband to drop his work and take over looking after Maia and Noah because I couldn’t get up from bed anymore. I was feeling drained of all energy, I had lost my appetite and developed a dry cough too. I ordered two COVID-19 home testing kits online.

Tuesday was more of the same: severe headache, fever, muscle aches all over my body, dry cough, and paralysing fatigue. Unfortunately my husband had a three-hour board meeting (remotely) in the morning, so I sat on the floor with the kids trying to play with them until I could go back to bed. To Maia’s credit I have to say she has been a little angel all this time that we’ve been sick. She has been playing nicely and hasn’t complained (much) although we haven’t been able to see anyone or even to leave the house. Of course she still demands attention, activities, meals and makes a mess, but she’s been as good as I could ask a three-year old to be. It was also lucky that during the first three days of my illness, everyone else in the family was ok. The home tests arrived by noon and my husband and I took the tests and he dropped them off at the priority mailbox for 6pm collection. Luckily we had one just around the corner.

Wednesday was a repeat of Tuesday – both are a blur to me. But somehow we got through another day. I was feeding the kids with my freezer stash (thank God I’d been cooking all of the previous week!) and survived on cereal myself. On Thursday morning my husband received his positive test result by a text and mine followed soon after. Although I already knew I was most definitely sick with COVID-19, it still felt bad to see it in writing. That day my fever finally broke, which was a relief. The headache was still there and resembled a migraine (without aura) and the muscle aches made me feel like I’d been hit by a bus. I still had a cough but it felt minor to the other symptoms. Since I was finally up I mustered up all energy I had left and made a big Shepard’s pie and some oat-blueberry muffins to keep us going. That day also my husband started feeling really ill. He didn’t get temperature but he lost his voice and was extremely tired. We took turns to rest. Noah was fussier than usual and his sleep was disturbed during the first half of the night. At midnight he was crying again and his temperature rose above +39. The night was awful.

Poor Noah was really sick on Friday. He barely ate, he slept only 30-minutes stretches and was fussy and upset most of the time. He was back to breastfeeding, which he had almost stopped and luckily my milk supply which had almost dried up, went up as well in response. We were so exhausted and dreaded the night. We never tested our kids for COVID-19 because the test is very unpleasant and we were all isolating anyway. So I don’t know if Noah had COVID-19 or a regular cold, but he had a fever for three days (came down with Calpol, thankfully) and he was very snotty. I felt a bit better on Friday, which was the sixth day of symptoms but then I completely lost my sense of smell. It felt really trivial at the time, but now it’s been five days without being able to smell a thing and it’s starting to really bother me! I keep checking Noah’s nappy because I can’t tell at all whether it’s dirty or not. I can still taste my food, unlike my poor husband, but I have to say that the loss of my sense of smell has taken out a lot of the enjoyment. A bit like the coronavirus has, in broader terms…

On the weekend we focused on taking turns to rest. Noah was a bit happier on Sunday and started eating better again today (Tuesday). He’s sleeping better too which is a relief since we’re so exhausted. My husband is busy with work (as always) so it’s not easy to get time to rest… Maia could have returned to nursery yesterday, but we have decided to keep her at home for the third week. It’s difficult to know what the right decision is – to send her or not? In some ways I suppose it’ll be a safer place now with most of the staff and children presumably immune to the coronavirus. But with all these new variants, who even knows…

We’ve been in isolation for 15-days now and my symptoms started nine days ago. I still have a dry cough, I’m exhausted and can’t smell a thing. It’s really, really depressing. I know myself well enough to have expected feeling down, but it’s really hard to pull myself together. I like feeling capable and having lots of energy, being productive and active. The first week of isolation, before we got sick, was actually fun, although the weather was rubbish. See my last post for all the fun activities we did with Maia! On top of all the fun with the kids and the baking and cooking, I practiced yoga on three nights and did two Peloton rides as well! Last week couldn’t have been more different…

I feel like I should end this post with some positive words… Of all the things I have been blessed with and how I should feel grateful despite everything. I really should, and I promise you I do feel it, but right now I’m letting myself wallow in self pity. Especially since I just read the news poor Captain Sir Tom’s passing at age of 100 from Covid-19… My heart just breaks… Oh when will this horrid thing go away?!

xoxoxo,

Sini