The Covid Finally Got Us!

Do you know what those two pink lines mean? It means something a little different for everyone. Here’s my family’s Covid story:

On Monday, December 6th, after hosting a little birthday party for my eldest son, I started to have a scratchy throat. But, what kind of wimp would cancel running for a scratchy throat, right? So, my friend Laurie and I, along with Lizzie the Dog, went for a fun Christmas lights run.

Tuesday was a day that we all had been looking forward to. Daniel and I were scheduled to get our booster shots, the older boys were going to have their first band concert since Covid, and I was going to have my first meeting of the class that I will be attending. Woo hoo! I felt a little achy and had a little case of the chills, but that’s common for me when I have a cold, so off I went to get my booster, and we had a terrific day and evening. We even hosted a little reception for Caleb and Isaac with their grandparents and aunt. It was a wonderful day.

That brings us to Wednesday. I still felt achy, had chills, and some cold symptoms, but it certainly wasn’t the worst cold that I’ve had, just a little weird, so the show must go on! Besides, maybe the booster plus a little cold meant some residual aches. So, after school, I took the boys to swim and also went to the grocery store in between practices. I was so productive and pleased with myself.

Thursday! I felt sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired, like the cold medicine that I took to help me sleep the night before (because I had such a deep ache from my lower back to my knees) was still working. How long does that stuff last? I only took one Benadryl! But, I needed to go to work for a bit, so I got myself going.

Ironically, took a picture of myself on my way out the door and texted it to Daniel with the caption “Fake it till I make it”. Well, as you can see by the picture beside it, I didn’t last long at work. When I got home, Daniel told me about someone that we had dinner with last Saturday that tested positive for Covid. Is that what I have??? Daniel’s work party is tomorrow. I better check just to be sure, before I infect the whole restaurant. Well, thanks to the local library, I got two tests, and before you know it, I was second guessing the results. What? Positive for Covid? Surely that’s not what those two pink lines mean… I texted Daniel, and when he got home, he tested positive too. Shocker.

Where did we get it??? We hosted a dinner party on Saturday night… One of the wives tested positive, Daniel and I are now positive… Who brought Covid unknowingly to our house? How many other people will get sick? After being pretty cautious since March 2020, did I just host a super spreader event??? How many people did I expose?

When I looked back at the week, I had symptoms since Monday. Oh dear…

We all stayed home on Friday. Daniel and I stayed in our “Covid Quarters”. The boys’ learned skills during our 2020 quarantining came in handy. They decided to do a “Schuttinga Diner” for our breakfast. Nathan acted as waiter, and Isaac cooked our breakfast. It was so sweet, and a little undercooked. Then they set about doing asynchronous work while I did the paperwork to get them back into school next week.

We felt pretty good, but I got wiped out doing ordinary things, and oh my goodness did my muscles ache.

We were all set to send Caleb and Isaac back to school on Monday, but on Sunday Isaac complained of a headache and cold. Well, he resulted in the third positive test. We tested Caleb, and he was negative. Send Isaac up to the Covid Quarters! And I guess Caleb can still go to school. More 2020 skills: Zoom supper!

What in the world is Isaac going to do all day in one space? Learn a new skill: Cribbage!

On Monday I filled out the paperwork for Nathan to return to school, since that was the day that he was fully vaccinated. But… because he was exposed before he was fully vaccinated, it would be a much longer process that we wouldn’t be able to do, since we were in Covid Jail. Oh well! He got a three week Christmas Break with some homeschooling. The worst part was that he had to stay downstairs while we were isolating upstairs. It got lonely.

Caleb’s school still had him marked absent. When they realized that he was in school, there was a bit of a panic. But, we followed the protocols, and he stayed in school for the whole week.

In the evenings we took walks to see the Christmas lights. The “Covids” stayed in the back and the “NonCovids” stayed up front and yelled “Unclean” to keep people away. Just kidding. But not really.

This is our house. Beautiful, huh?

I had to make it very public that I had Covid because I was planning on having an open house with the moms from church on the following Wednesday for breakfast. Making it public was not my favorite thing, but the result was good! Two women from church made supper for us, and others offered to bring groceries, etc… Our neighbors and Daniel’s mom also took good care of us in the food department. Thank you!!!

Too bad Daniel couldn’t smell the delicious food that was brought.

Covid Jail lasts for ten days. Daniel and I would be out on December 17th. Isaac would be out on the 22nd, so pretty much we were in Jail for two weeks. But wait… Nathan’s nose started to run… Covid!!! That would take us until December 24th. Stinker! But… the silver lining was that we could all hang out while Caleb was at school.

Now that we were all together, we tackled this puzzle. It was not easy.

On Friday after school, we told Caleb, who oddly enough never caught Covid from us, that we were officially throwing in the towel and that we would be together again.

So back to the question of where did we get it???

We think that Caleb gave it to us and the other family.

Why do we think that?

Here’s the evidence:

Caleb had a very small cold on December 2nd and 3rd. Very small. We sent him to school, of course. You go to school with a cold, right? Isaac and Nathan were more recently vaccinated, so they took longer to catch it. They needed to be exposed for a longer period of time. They all sleep in the same room, so that says a lot about the potency of the vaccine!

Now that Omicron is spreading like wildfire, we feel pretty good about our chances of staying healthy since we got our booster AND Covid at the same time.

Since I had blogged about our life during Covid so much in 2020, I thought that it was fitting to blog about having it! I’m so thankful for vaccines, friends, and the skills that my boys had learned in 2020. They definitely made having Covid a lot easier!