My COVID-19 Diary | Mama Notes
It took a few days for it to really hit that I had COVID-19. Was I one of those statistics? Am I going to need to stay quarantined in my room without seeing my family for 10 days or more? How is this all going to work with my husband needing to work out of the home, homeschooling two young children, cooking meals every day, keeping a home clean and overall managing the household.
COVID-19 hit me hard. It wasn’t until the 4th day into my obvious symptoms is when my husband and I realized we are going to be in this for a long haul over the next few weeks. This is going to be a major adjustment in our home and if we weren’t already impacted enough, this was going to rock our little world. I’m so grateful I only had what they considered mild to moderate symptoms, and having daily check-ins with my family doctor every day was reassuring.
We realized that my son had shown almost no symptoms of Coronavirus other than a persistent cough that lasted over 4 weeks but as we have learnt, sometimes it show up fairly mild as if they just have a cold so we never thought much of it. My husband was incredible — holding down the fort with two young children and trying to work from home all while showing almost no symptoms (thank goodness!).
It was hard to really figure out how and where we would have gotten COVID-19. Since Spring Break started in mid-March, the kids and I had been isolating at home, social distancing and only doing drive by visits with our extended family (2 meters away). I went grocery shopping twice while taking all the precautions and we wash our hands extensively at home. This is why, it continues to remind me how this virus does not discriminate — anyone can get this even if you are young and healthy.
The symptoms started over Easter long weekend when I was experiencing fatigue, my body felt worn down like I just ran a long marathon. I’ve experienced fatigue and burnout before and I thought it was just from the week before with all of the new changes that were upon us with juggling the kids schedules, my husband’s and mine. Once I couldn’t push through it anymore, I went to lie down and began developing a fever. Once my fever came on, we decided it was best for me to isolate in our bedroom and I called my family doctor. It took about 3 days for the more intense symptoms to kick in including a chest cough, upper back pain, painful headaches, dizziness, and fever spikes which would come in waves.
As a family, we would consider ourselves to be pretty healthy. I do my diligence to stay engaged in a wholistic health approach, caring for our bodies and mind the best way possible for us. We have always stuck to a healthy regime of whole foods, minimal sugar, (mainly) gluten-free and plant-based diet. We all stay active and dose up on our daily supplements. While being sick with COVID-19, I did daily breathing exercises, dosed up on all of the immune boosting foods, vitamins and pain medication guided by our family naturopath and my health practitioner. Our family brought us homemade food. I did a daily beautiful healing meditation gifted to me by a wonderful energy healer Reiki by Lex who I see which helped me visualize being healthy, safe and strong.
This whole experience was incredibly humbling. It reminded me just how precious life is. While I was stuck in one room for over 10 days I was reminiscing on the simple things we do every day as a family — our family dinners, hug and kisses, bedtime routines. My daughter asked me every day when she could hug me and began to cry when she saw me first wearing a mask — it was heartbreaking. I realized quickly how I took these moments for granted. Getting so caught up with all of the ‘busyness’ we tend to fill up in our days - checking emails, social media posts, text messages and just simply feeling so exhausted at the end of the day that you are counting down when its time for them to go to bed so you can have an hour worth of peace to yourself. It was a true reminder to stay grounded and express gratitude for the simple moments in our day.
These are times which put everything into perspective - all of the distractions and calendar of events but then you are being forced to stop everything and it brings so much more clarity in our normal “full” busy life.
Daily cuddles with our family cat eased the loneliness while in isolation from the family
Learning to LET GO during this time was a big takeaway. As a perfectionist, who likes to feel in control, not being able to step in when I can feel my husband needed extra help juggling the daily chaos of the household was tough. All I wanted to do is run out sweep up all of the toys and clothing and put it away. But I couldn’t. I had to let this go and allow our home to be in a form none of us are fully used to for the next two weeks.
While I’ve been resting over this past week, I’ve been drawn to reading and watching Netflix series that represents strong powerful women — women who have faced incredible challenges, who are pioneers in their thinking and show so much resilience, fearlessness and strength. You pull from what your true values really are and see what matters most — holding onto our families tight and cherish the simple things each and everyday.
During challenging times, find your inner resilience, build empathy and carry gratitude from your heart.
As we are all facing challenging times right now, we need continue to find strength in ways we never knew we had. The simplest things in life are so important not to take for granted. Our health and well-being are so precious but so is the power of our village and our community.
We need each other right now because we are stronger together.
xo Casey
