How The Pandemic Has Treated Me
When the pandemic first came about to us all, it was a shock. It’s crazy how fast a virus can quickly spread and kill many lives, young and old. We were told to stock up on food and house supplies. Going to the grocery store was like being in a movie where everybody just grabbed everything and didn’t care about nobody else. Seeing everything off the shelves taken and taking what you can to survive to be in your homes for quite a while. My family and I went to the stores and got what we could. Stayed home and only went to the store if we needed anything important. Restaurants shut down, businesses closed their doors. It was insane to see how much was changed because of a deadly virus.
Luckily for me, I had already worked from home permanently, and my coworkers who did work at the office now had to work from home. Everybody in the world had to start work from home, and unfortunately, some had to lose their job due to this pandemic.
For a while, no one close to me had caught the virus, so it didn’t really make me really worry, so to say. But in June, I had an aunt and uncle that caught the virus. My aunt had captured most of the symptoms, and my uncle was asymptomatic. They recovered from the virus and are doing well. Great news!
Although in July, I started to not feel well and I tested positive for COVID-19, and I started to have body aches that turned into chills then turned into having a fever every night for two weeks straight, no joke. In the middle of my second week, I started moving slower and didn’t have an appetite for days. Plus, I had lost my taste and smell, that didn’t help either. By the end of just the first week, my mother and two sisters had tested positive as well. Their symptoms didn’t get as intense as me. None of them had fevers, just cold-like symptoms, and feeling weak. For me, by the middle of the second week, my mom could see a significant change in the way I was moving and knew something was wrong. I started to have trouble breathing. My mom watched me when I slept and saw my breathing picking up while I slept and how pale I was beginning to become. She called my stepmom and had her take me to the hospital. I have other medical issues that don’t collide well with this virus that made me more high risk (I’m not quite ready to talk about that yet). After getting all my information and vitals, they put me on a bed and get me on an IV and give my oxygen. They took an EKG and a chest X-Ray, and the results were that I had Pneumonia and needed oxygen.
I was admitted into the hospital for the first time ever in my life, and I was scared I would be in here for a long time or that I may never leave this place alive again. On the third day there, I had a very high fever, and they thought I may have another infection. I was getting my blood drawn every morning, getting poked with a drug that will help prevent blood clotting every morning, and what felt like every hour getting my vitals checked every morning. I was approved to get a drug they have been using on COVID patients working called Remdesivir. That was to be given to me every day for 3 days, and they had asked me if I would try a trial that has been working for COVID patients and only had a 1% failure. I honestly would have tried anything to help me get better or be apart of that 1%; the trial was for Plasma Transfusion. It all seemed to work, and thankfully, I could go home after 5 days of being in the hospital.
There were still some precautions I had to make; I had to be on oxygen when I got home till my blood oxygen was at a number it should be at. I couldn’t go back to work till I wasn’t feeling winded anymore, and that was about another month after I got home from the hospital. All in all, this wasn’t something I had expected to endure when first hearing about this virus.
About a week or two later, my other aunt from out of state caught the virus; my grandparents stayed with her to watch her 1yr old daughter. Well, days after both my grandparents caught it. My grandpa got some of the symptoms, but my grandma was asymptomatic to it. They all recovered and are doing great.
Did my time in the hospital put me in a dark area? Yes it sure did. Honestly the feeling of not being able to breathe was unbearable and the struggle I do not wish upon anyone. But through this time it had spoke to me to never give up hope and look forward to something in my life and be grateful to see the sun again.
You don’t know how to feel or treat something in life until either a family member, a friend, or you deal with it.
Please stay safe you guys!
Dysfunctionally Blessed 