Coronavirus Affects Everyone

Coronavirus+Affects+Everyone

Hello CB South community,  

I wasn’t planning on sharing my story because I’m usually a private person. But, if my article can give anyone a different outlook on the entire COVID-19 situation and help them understand how existent the virus is, then I felt that sharing my experience would be beneficial.  

I know that the Coronavirus has impacted everyone’s one lives in their own way, and I – like many other seniors – was devastated to hear we would not be going back to school.  However, I never thought that Coronavirus would impact my family and I in the way that it has.

My dad was a very healthy, active person with a strong immune system who hardly ever got sick. Then, one night out of the blue, he got a high fever and body aches. My mom and I assumed it was just the flu and that it would pass. Although after a week of him being sick, he began having severe breathing problems and the ambulance came to take him to the hospital where he was later admitted that night.

Due to high precautions, the hospital wasn’t allowing any visitors, and we couldn’t even send cards or flowers. After a few days, we heard from the doctor that he tested positive for Covid-19. It was absolute shock. My mind was in shambles and I couldn’t grasp the reality of what was happening.

They started him on an experimental treatment right away.

Unfortunately, my dad was always too weak to talk on the phone or text, so we barely had any contact with him and only got information once every afternoon when the doctors called with an update. We patiently waited torturous weeks to hopefully hear of some recovery, but the treatment exhibited no improvement and his oxygen levels continued to decline.

Then, on April 6th, we got a call from the hospital saying that his inflammation levels in his lungs were rapidly rising and the medications weren’t helping. They were going to put him on a ventilator, but the doctors didn’t seem hopeful that he would be able to come off it.

They gave us his hospital room phone number so we could talk to him and give him any hope we had to offer. From the very few words we got out of him during the call, he told me that he was in pain and no matter how hard he tried to get his body to fight back, the virus was just too strong.

That was easily the hardest day of my life. I felt like I was going to lose my dad forever without having the chance to say goodbye. 

Life felt as if I was just going through the motions. 

Having to comprehend the fact that I may never get to see or hug my dad was absolutely heart wrenching. Suddenly, after weeks of prayers and different medications, his body was finally responding to the treatment.

The overjoyed feeling I felt when I heard those words was something I couldn’t and cannot explain.

Within about a week, his fever had gone down, and his lungs were starting to heal. It was a miracle. We couldn’t believe how quickly he was progressing. The doctors did one final test for Covid-19 and he finally came back negative.

Soon after that, the doctors felt he was able to be discharged and finish recovering in the comfort of his own home. To this day, he seems to be doing much better, but he still has a long road of recovery ahead.  

This virus is not just something that is affecting the elderly in nursing homes or immunocompromised individuals.  The chilling reality is that no one is safe from obtaining this life-threatening virus no matter your age or your health.

In my dads situation, this virus is something you can easily catch without knowing until you’re in the hospital fighting for your life. My intention of this article is not to scare anyone, but rather stress the importance of doing whatever you can to keep yourself and others around you from getting sick. 

These have been dire times for everyone and through sharing my story, I hope that more people begin to understand the severity of this virus. 

   -Julia Murphy