Amy and COVID

[BusynMember1]

So my daughter Amy got COVID when she went to a doctor. Not kidding. Two days later the office called to tell Amy that the doctor has it.

She was tested. We all were. Amy had it.

Luckily Amy is in her 20s and has no other health conditions. She slept for two weeks and coughed until she vomited. The kids went to stay with a young aunt who used to be a nurse and was willing to take a COVID risk. Bless her. Amy could not have watched them. And my husband and I are in our 60s with pre-existing conditions. We could not risk it.

Rick also tested negative but he had to quarantine, like all of us. So we put a non family member in charge of the business for the first time.

I can not express the stress of this. And how sick Amy was. Amy never lays down and sleeps. She ran a high fever too. And nobody could be with her

You really don't want COVID if you are older. Really. Do be safe, wear a mask, social distance. The young may be able to handle COVID but it is nothing 50 plus should mess with.

Prayers and hugs to all.

 

[Copabanana]

Dear Busy

What a shock! I am so very sorry you've had to deal with this. You are writing about Amy having been sick, past tense, so I am assuming she is better. Are the children back home with her? How very scary for them.

I have been going to physical therapy for a broken shoulder. I open all the windows in the treatment room, and I reassure myself that with less than 15 minutes contact with a person, I am not at so much risk, but I feel certain that Amy was not with the doctor a full 15 minutes, so maybe I am feeling safer, without reason.

These healthcare decisions aren't easy to make. Thank you very much for letting us know. I had wondered where you were the past couple of weeks.

Is Rick back to work, or is he still quarantining? How stressful and worrisome. How hard that Amy had to be alone, and so very ill. You must have been besides yourself. Thank goodness she is better.

 

[BusynMember1]

Hi, Copa. Blessings to you.

Amy was not with the doctor long but he wasn't wearing a mask! A doctor? Really? Amy was tempted to leave but thought maybe he had just been tested. She felt uneasy but did not leave. And she had to remove her own mask when he looked in her throat.

I am livid. I can't even talk about it.

Amy is better but the kids are not home yet. Rick is going back to work Monday. Our quarantine ends Saturday. 14 days.

I can not begin to tell you on this forum just how screwed up we are regarding COVID. Maybe later I will talk about it. It's scary. The way we are handling the pandemic is horrific. Amy is also livid because nobody will order a test to make sure she is negative. They don't test a second time. That's why she is careful not to take the kids while she is still coughing. What if she still has it? But the protocol is not to test to make sure you are negative. How nuts is that? You sort of are never sure you are no longer contagious.

We are all in shock that this is being handled in such an inept way.

Copa, stay well. Much love.

 

[Copabanana]

She felt uneasy but did not leave. And she had to remove her own mask when he looked in her throat.

This is so horrible. I can't believe it. When I go to the physical therapist everybody is masked and windows are open. He insists we use sanitizer before entering. There are Merv filters in his system. He even wheres 2 masks, an N95 and another one over it.

I am so grateful you shared this because now I would be prepared if something like this were to happen to me. It's very hard for me to make good decisions in the moment, if I am unprepared. I would have been paralyzed had this doctor done this to me. I am appalled by this. Who is he that he can expose people to risk like this without a thought? He put all of you in danger. And he exposed the children to insecurity and fear, unecessarily. I would file a complaint with the medical board. He deserves to lose his medical license. I think so.

How is Jaden getting through this? This poor child didn't need this.

And I can't believe it that no testing is available to Amy so that she knows she can safely be reunited with her own children. I find this callous and unbelievable really. We are all of us being sacrificed really. That is the attitude. The children. Old people like me. The essential workers. It's kind of like we are all of us slowly being boiled to death. At first it's just warm. And then it's too late. I don't know what to do.

 

[Nandina]

Hi Busy,

My prayers for good health are with you and your family. I’m not sure what state you live in but I don’t think not doing a follow-up test is the norm. How else would they know to let Amy out of quarantine? Is this a doctor telling her this or your health department? Our health department does free testing 3 days a week for anyone who wants it. So far, at least in my county in Tennessee, the testing has been continuous and handled very professionally.

Not testing her again makes no sense at all.

The very best to all of you.

 

[MissLulu]

Oh Busy, what terrible news. Poor Amy. How stressful for you all. I'm glad she is feeling better now but what horrible time she has had. I think she is wise not to take the children back while she's still coughing. I can't believe they don't do a second test. That is shocking! Here you can't come out of isolation until you've had a clear test.

Thinking of you all.

 

[RN0441]

So the other exec assistant here has COVID and so does her husband.

We were all working from home when she got the virus. She was cleaning the home of an elderly man, an old friend, twice per month and he told her he had been diagnosed a few days after she was there. She had a cough and so they both got tested. The older man had mild symptoms and he is in his 70's.

My company follows the CDC daily. They now do not recommend getting retested because normally the tests come back positive again (hmm maybe the reason positive tests are so high perhaps?). The key is to quarantine 14 days after onset of symptoms, then be symptom free for 3 full days before returning to work.

She is ready to come back on Monday, however during COVID she developed pneumonia in the bottom of her right lung, was treated, but still has a cough. They feel if she returns with cough people will be afraid. She is going back to doctor today as she is out of cough medications.

She is 48 and her husband is 50. Both normally healthy with no underlying conditions. He had a milder case than she did.

 

[Copabanana]

Dear Busy

All morning I have been consumed by this news about Amy. I feel so very badly for her and your family, that she had to suffer so, that you and her Dad had to go through this worry and stress, and that the whole family had to endure displacement and disruption to accomodate what did not have to happen.

This suffering has brought this home to me. Among my close friends, we have been loosening up. For example, I am shopping myself, and as I mentioned here, I go to the physical therapist. I am thinking of the Fall when experts are expecting it to be worse. I am unsure how to deal with this. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, because it helps all of us to make decisions about our own lives. And thank you RN for sharing the experience of your co-worker.

This is what happened 100 years ago with the Spanish Flu. When the 2nd wave came in the fall and winter of 1918-19 it was disastrous. Perhaps this is why the experts on the president's team are speaking with one voice, that we are in peril, if we don't change.

 

[Crayola13]

Was it hard on your grandson to have to stay with someone else, or did he seem to adjust well? I'm glad Amy is over it and that she didn't have a severe case.

 

[BusynMember1]

The kids are back with Amy. It was very hard on the kids being away from her.
Copa, my only advice is always wear masks, socially distant and avoid indoor crowds. We don't go to restaurants or any stores (we order food online) and we take COVID seriously. Like RN said it is not a killer always but the older you are the more it kills. Do what is comfortable for you and don't let others influence what you choose to do to be safe.

Lots of love and prayers.

 

[Copabanana]

Thank you Busy for the update. Since I wrote the post above, I have pulled back. I am shopping very little, and only going out for medical appointments. Somehow it helped to put it into words here, to get control. I have been reading about risktaking, how we infer safety when we take little risks, and don't get ill. And we take the exactly wrong lesson from the experience, and take bigger and more risks. I don't have to be that dumb.

I did however today need to get a hearing exam, because the one I had had in Feb lapsed. I was afraid, but realized that there are risks that are necessary to take, and worth the "risk."

I am so glad the children are back with Amy. How hard this one was on everybody and I am so happy that she's better.

 

[MissLulu]

Copa, you are so right about inferring safety and taking bigger risks. We are in the midst of our second wave here, which has been much worse than the first. My state is in a hard lockdown. The capital city has a curfew enforced and we all must wear masks if we leave the house for groceries or medical appointments. Most people in our state are only allowed to leave their house for one hour per day to exercise. Only one person per household is allowed to shop, and all shopping must be completed in an hour or less. Before the second wave hit I was becoming complacent, but not anymore. The lockdown has been much harder to bear the second time around.

This second wave came from one outbreak - a breach in quarantine security - and the result is around 400 people have lost their lives so far. Most of the fatalities have been older people but some were in their 30s and 40s.

New Zealand went for 100 days without any cases, now they have around 20 (which is still way better than most places, but shows how even with the most stringent controls this thing can find it's way back in. We have had tough restrictions here in Australia, especially in my state. At the end of May we'd had less than 2000 cases all up here (in my state) and only a handful of deaths. Restrictions were eased and then the second wave started. Now we've had 18000 cases all up and around 400 deaths. Thankfully we are starting to see a drop in numbers again, but we've had to go to next level restrictions to get a result. And it will be some time before we can ease the restrictions we have.

All I can say is please take care all of you! (Most especially those of you in the US, where the virus seems to be still very much out of control.)

 

[Crayola13]

My mom is in ICU with COVID. It looks like she is going to be put on life support. My dad is hysterical. I'm in shock because two weeks ago she was perfectly fine. Today thi ngs went downhill badly.

 

[MissLulu]

Oh Crayola, I am so sorry to hear this. I will pray for your mom and your family.

 

[Albatross]

I’m so sorry to hear this, Crayola. Prayers to all of you.

 

[Nandina]

Crayola, I am so very sorry to hear about your mom. You all will be in my prayers.

 

[Copabanana]

I am so very sorry Crayola. I will pray for your Mother and family.

 

[Copabanana]

Most especially those of you in the US, where the virus seems to be still very much out of control

Thank you MissLulu. I had not seen your post (somehow this new site isn't working for me, at least to let me know about responses. I'm glad I checked again because I saw just now Crayola's post about her Mother being ill.

There have been almost 8000 confirmed cases in my very small County of less than 170,000 people. They say that there could be 10 times the amount of cases, undetected. A few weeks ago If that is the case, we could be close to herd immunity, here.

I had read online (and didn't know until then) that the Department of Health had stopped contact tracing AT ALL. Which is what I wanted to write about. Here it seems there is acceptance of the disease, and that we will likely get it. If we're old or sick, we are facing what could be death sentences. And that psychological stress we bear alone. Any normalcy in my own life, seems long gone. It's hard to think about a future because there is no control over circumstances outside of one's door. And here in California there is all this smoke. I am grateful that there is no fire, but everywhere else there seems to be. Without an end in site.

These are such hard times.

 

[SeekingStrength]

Crayola,

I am so sorry to learn about your mom. I will pray for all of you right now.

 

[KTMom91]

I'm so sorry about your mom, Crayola. Many hugs and prayers going out.