HR Newsletters 2021

COVID IN REAL LIFE

Mrs. Lauren Stewart

H ave you heard that Covid is only the Flu? What about this one - it doesn’t affect children? How many times have you heard that Covid isn’t real?? Before November 25, 2020, I would have agreed with you on many of the crazy Covid outtakes. But after November 25, 2020 my life changed forever. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I woke up feeling kinda crappy. I called my mom to tell her that I thought me and my kids needed to be tested before coming to her house for Thanksgiving; I had a cough that wouldn’t go away. I made an appointment that very day and we drove to the medical offices and sat in our parking spot to wait for the nurses to swab us for Flu, Covid, and Strep. The drive home was the longest. I waited for our doctor to call us; to tell us that everything was ok and we were cleared for Thanksgiving with my parents. To my shock, both of my children tested positive for Strep and I tested positive for COVID-19!! I was confused, scared, sad, and anxious. The first day you really just don’t know how to feel. I woke up on Thanksgiving Day feeling very isolated. I was achy and had a little bit of fever and had a weird reaction to smells in my house. I thought the house was on fire somewhere. I said it had to be something electrical. I even said things like “it smells like rubber or chemical burning.” Apparently one symptom of Covid is some- thing called Phantosmia. Phantosmia is medical word for a smell that is simply not there. Thanksgiving was a very sad day. My parents dropped off food and left it in my car (my car became the drop off for items our friends and family would leave for us). We waved through the window to my parents. Internally, I knew things would get better but in the moment I was consumed with a lot of sadness. We had never spent Thanksgiving alone. The only thing that kept me going were my children. This is how Covid 19 began at my house. Over the next 2 weeks there would be many difficult days and a lot of days spent just trying to rest and regain strength. The timeline gets very construed and messy now, simply because I do not have a good recollection of the days and how things fell. I simply knew I would pray away one symptom and another would appear. The list of the very real symptoms were coughing, chills, fever, headache, aching, upset stomach, and the loss of taste and smell. With the loss of taste and smell, comes weight loss, you simply lose interest in food. Keep in mind, food is a fuel for regaining strength and it’s like my body was working against itself and setting me up to fail. Don’t get me wrong every woman strives to lose weight and you would think I would be so excited that I had just lost 15 pounds and did not have to do a thing!! …Not like this. Not this way. I was empty and lifeless and I would push through another day trying to cling on to something positive to just make it through the day. A little history on me - I am married with 2 kids: ages 7 and 8. As with any good mom, I knew I had to take care of my children. I honestly do not know how I found the strength to make any of that happen. I am a very independent person and I usually do all the things at my house. For the first time as an adult, I was passing out my address to coworkers to bring over food. I was accepting help; that is how much Covid took

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