Our COVID story started March 10th or so. I had symptoms that I thought were flu symptoms: body aches, extreme headache, dizziness, fever. And I was sick for a couple of days before I went to the ER and my husband drove me there and they brought us to a segregated area of Royal Oak Beaumont because of my symptoms of fever and body aches. And I was given IV fluids and EKG for some cardiac monitoring because I had a lot of dizziness. And I was given swabs for Respiratory panels and then a blood panel to rule out mono. So my respiratory panels ruled out strep and a couple of different strains of flu. My blood panel ruled out mono and other infection. So the doctor there at the ER agreed to give me the covid-19. And after a couple more hours of IV fluids, we were sent home and told for our whole household to go into quarantine, for 14 days at minimum. So we went into quarantine. After a few days, my husband also had symptoms similar to mine. He had a high fever, extreme body aches, fatigue, and extreme headache. He also had a cough at that point. I did not have a cough. His cough got pretty bad.
Long story short on the illness part of it. My swab came back eight days later, and it said it was negative. But our doctor did not believe it was negative. She said to assume that we were positive and remain in quarantine. And we were not able to get tested again that we were told there were not enough test kits.
So during this time of illness when we were quarantined there were several days where my husband and I both felt quite sick, worried for our health because we could not breathe very easily. And so we consulted by phone with my doctor’s office and with the COVID hotline at Beaumont, but we were told not to leave our house unless we were in acute respiratory distress, which was described to us as if we were laying down and unable to catch our breath, that would be considered acute respiratory distress. And that would be the only reason that we would be admitted — not even admitted but allowed in — to be seen at the hospital and we also could not be seen in any urgent care or at our doctor’s office because we had COVID symptoms. So even though I would have liked to have a chest x-ray and probably needed more IV fluids, we had to stay home. So we were told to monitor our symptoms, our fever. And try to find a pulse oximeter so that we could monitor our lung functioning and have more information in case we both are symptoms worsened. So we continued to do that. And in the meantime, we had neighbors and friends dropping food off to our front door. And I eventually developed pneumonia. That was not confirmed by a chest x-ray, confirmed only, or diagnosed only over the phone by the doctor again, because I could not be seen anywhere, because I was not in acute respiratory distress. So I was prescribed antibiotics for pneumonia. Which then developed after about two weeks of pneumonia symptoms, I developed pleurisy which is inflammation of the lungs the lining of the lungs. Which is just painful and causes fatigue, but it clears up on its own. I’ve had it before so I was not — it was not a new condition for me, and I thought I knew kind of what to expect.
So we were — had not left our home in almost four weeks at the end of all of that, and now we still do not have confirmation that we had COVID, although our doctor believes that we both did. Our two children never showed symptoms thankfully, but that was just another reason why they were pretty confident that it was COVID. The doctor felt that if it had been some other type of flu that our children would have probably shown symptoms, but assuming that it’s COVID. They were understanding that children — or, people who are 19 or younger often are asymptomatic. So we are assuming that our children were infected, but were asymptomatic.
So we are waiting now for antibodies testing. And hoping that that becomes available so that we can I guess have proof that we did experience the virus.