The week before last, I was basking in a Thanksgiving stupor of love and good cheer with family and friends. A few days later, on Monday, I woke up with a faint, dull headache. I was scheduled off work, but decided to catch up from the holiday. I work from home anyway, so no big deal.

About 7 hours later, I felt something building up in my respiratory system and decided to call it a day. My husband, Bryan, had been feeling sick since Sunday. I went to bed early and actually got 9+ hours of sleep. I worked again on Tuesday, but only about 6 hours. Good thing I stocked up on over the counter medications because I decided to take a dose of a generic Nyquil. A COVID-19 test reported a negative result. But things got really interesting early Wednesday morning.

Rewind to the Monday before Thanksgiving. It was my first time attending an in-person, all day conference in almost 3 years. It was a leadership conference at a hotel, targeted for women in Texas state government. I was so excited to be around so many other influential women and practice some of what I learned with my team. On Tuesday, I worked and at some point at the start of my day, my son, Caleb, asked me to help him find the thermometer because he was feeling sick. He said he had been coughing all night and didn’t feel well. I told him to mask up until his symptoms subsided. He had a slight fever and against my advise, decided to go to work. He said he had to go because other people were calling in sick.

A few hours later, I heard Caleb’s voice and learned from Bryan that Caleb’s boss sent him home. We reminded him to wear masks around us and he went on to stay in his room the rest of that day. It was the next day, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, while I was in the grocery store stocking up on medications I thought to call Caleb to tell him to take a COVID-19 test. Admittedly, it didn’t occur to me to ask him to test until I was talking to a friend. When I got home, he said he took it and the result was negative.

On the following Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I was awakened to uncontrollable chills, weakness in my joints, and a pounding headache. I could barely lift myself off the toilet when I went to the restroom. I decided not to work though I signed into my laptop for a few minutes to notify my boss and team I would be out sick. I stayed in bed the whole day, napping mostly in the morning. The chills only occurred one time in the early morning. The headache refused to subside until hours later, even despite medications. The weakness steadily improved.

I woke up groggy Thursday morning, but felt much better than Wednesday. My nose was stuffy and generally felt like I had a cold. After texting with my siblings and learning two of my nieces, my great niece, and my brother in law in Chicago tested positive, I decided to do the COVID-19 test again and WHOILA! The result was positive. Since my symptoms felt more like a cold, I proceeded to work in my office for most of the day. I went to bed early and did it again on Friday.

Both Bryan and Caleb took the test (Caleb twice) and their results were negative. I’m doubtful I’m the only one in the house who has/had COVID-19 and am convinced Caleb brought it in the house. However, I had been out in public a few days before Thanksgiving too. I let our friends know so they could be aware. And actually, the Friday after Thanksgiving my friend let me know her husband was sick, but with none of the symptoms we ended up having. Our symptoms didn’t start until days later. I’ve been quarantining since the positive result last Thursday and have since taken two more tests, both were positive.

My natural instinct is to try to figure out how I got it, but it really doesn’t matter. My main concern now is recovering and making sure I don’t pass this on so we are not playing a game of hot potato with this virus. Bryan has been sleeping on the couch which has been the hardest because we are each other’s cuddle buddy. It feels weird being separate in the same house. Elise doesn’t come near me. She’s been masking up in the house and walks around with disinfectant wipes. Caleb has a lingering cough and is the most reckless among us. We told him he needs to go to a drive through clinic tomorrow.

For the past almost 3 years, I’ve wondered if the fate of most would be to eventually catch the virus. Now that I got it, I do think it’s a bummer especially not knowing the long term effects considering my medical history. However, I’m thankful my symptoms are mild, which I attribute to the vaccines. My doctor also gave me a pneumonia and flu shot in September. It all helps.

In the mean time, I will retire to bed early tonight. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Let me know if you or someone you know had the virus and what the symptoms were like.

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