I feel like I should write this down as some day I will likely find it hilarious.
What a week we have had. Monday morning I was pretty excited to receive my first (and only) Covid vaccine in the form of 1 Johnson & Johnson variety shot. I felt like I had ran a marathon for a year and finally made it to the finish line. Finally someone in our house would have some protection from Covid and we could slowly start the transition back to normalcy.
My excitement was short-lived however, as later that same afternoon I received a call from the school nurse who revealed that contact tracing had indicated William was in close contact with a positive Covid case the week prior at school. It is the only such phone call we’ve received all year and as luck would have it, it was on the same day I was able to get vaccinated. The nurse indicated we should watch William for symptoms but would not be required to keep him home from school.
I shrugged it off (mostly) but after talking with my brother really thought getting William tested for Covid would help put my mind more at ease. I just needed to see that negative test result with my own eyes to know we weren’t sending an asymptomatic Covid case to mingle at school. Jason hauled William to the nearest testing site (open until 7:00pm) to get a rapid test completed before we sent him to school the next day. Little did either of us know, you had to request the rapid test at this particular site, so after completing the regular PCR test, Jason and William took a 2nd trip through the testing site for a rapid test.
Jason and William arrived home without much fanfare. Within the hour we had the rapid test results.
Positive.
I suddenly had the “rug pulled out from under me” feeling. Cue panic. And crying. Lots of crying by me and a little by William. My mental health can be shaky on a “good” pandemic day and now this. We gathered up William and his things and sent him to the downstairs family room to isolate. With one positive test result, the rest of us were in quarantine as well.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. We’re careful, super careful. This was March 8th and the kids hadn’t been anywhere public but school since the 26th of February, and even that outing was masked. William didn’t have any symptoms at all and everyone in our house has been healthier than average all year. Our elementary school has had ZERO cases of in school transmission between kids wearing masks. Yet here we were on the same day I had gotten my vaccination, suddenly Covid positive in our house. Boo.
Tuesday morning I called the school nurse and reported our results. She went through all the procedures to ensure William was isolated and the rest of us were in quarantine. Jason got tested for Covid, mostly out of curiosity, and it came back negative, while I notified the moms of William’s closest friends to let them know they’d be getting a call from the school nurse. One of the moms indicated her son had been at school the week prior with symptoms of Covid before testing positive. Once again I found myself reevaluating. My first thought was “okay, William’s best friend has Covid, so William has asymptomatic Covid”. My second thought was “man I wish I would have known about that exposure sooner”.
It is funny the things you suddenly question when you have a kid in isolation with Covid. I suddenly regretted allowing them to go with Jason to an indoor trampoline park 10 days prior to celebrate good parent teacher conferences. Mind you, they went on a weekday, first thing in the morning so it was slow, and they all wore masks and sanitized. I regretted sending them next door over the weekend to jump on the neighbor’s trampoline. The neighbor lives with her dad who is very high risk and has been homeschooling her kids this entire time. Again, my kids were in masks, and thankfully by now her dad has been vaccinated, but calling her to tell her William had Covid was THE. WORST. Ugh. I even regretted doing in person school for a hot minute, even though it has been the best possible thing for the mental health of our household.
The moms were all understanding, but for a moment I thought we’d take out every boy in the 3rd grade. There’s a group of 5-10 boys who are VERY close. I warned all of their teachers they would be out of school for a while, 10 days for William and 2 weeks for the other brothers. We started a plan for some online homework (cue flashbacks of at home learning from the spring of 2020) and I emailed my boss to let her know I might be a bit distracted in the near future.
Overall William was okay being downstairs, but was too scared to sleep downstairs alone so Jason joined him; Jason in the guestroom, and William in the family room on the futon. You know when you’re really stressed and you just need your person? Well my person was comforting my 9 year old in the basement. Boo.
By Wednesday morning I was resigned that this was our new normal for a while. William watched approximately 700 hours of YouTube between meals delivered to the basement. I could tell he was lonely because he actually started to be appreciative of my visits. I even made him a cutsie lunch with a heart shaped sandwich. Then it happened. The second test result came back.
Now remember how we didn’t get a rapid test right away like we were hoping? Well the results of that first test he took, the PCR test, came back and they were NEGATIVE. *Cue confusion and another call to the school nurse.* The call went something like “I know William has Covid, but I just wanted to report we got the second test back and it said negative. I just thought you should know, but I’m not expecting it to change anything.” The nurse on this other hand told us this was somewhat unusual, and honestly nobody gets 2 tests in the first place, but she was going to consult with the State Health Department and get back to me.
Shortly after lunch I got her call. It turns out the PCR test was the more accurate of the two tests. She explained that the rapid test William took was known to be not very accurate, especially in those without symptoms, and that some places had actually stopped using them for that very reason. The State Health Department had verified all of William’s results and declared him Covid free. I made her explain it to me 3 times. She offered to let me call the woman at the State Health Department directly. (That’s when you know you’ve really been asking too many questions). I’ve just been led to believe this entire pandemic, that there is no such thing as a “false positive test” when it comes to Covid and probably rightfully so. The last thing you want is every person who was tested for Covid and feels “okay” walking around with the belief the test they took was just wrong.
Perhaps the funniest part of the conversation (to me) was when the school nurse explained that it was probably too late to bring them back to school that day–it was already 1:00 PM, but that they would be expected back at school the next day. Obviously I was still processing everything, and told her I might not bring the boys back to school until the following Monday. She made sure to let me know that if they were not at school the next day it would be an unexcused absence and I would need to call in and excuse them. We went from a 2 week quarantine to being required to report to school the next day over the course of a 10 minute conversation!
So there you have our 36 hours with Covid. I felt as if I had run a marathon (the pandemic), gotten to the finish line (Wooo-hoooo I got my vaccination!), only to have the race director come over to where I’d collapsed in exhaustion to let me know I’d misunderstood the directions and the finish line was another 10 yards farther. *cue total mental/emotional meltdown* Then in one final act, the race director came back and was like “you know what, we reviewed the footage and you ran far enough to finish, we’re going to move the finish line right to where you collapsed. Congrats.”
If it’s possible to have PTSD from NOT having Covid I am a candidate. The week was a rollercoaster of emotions and it was a cruel joke to think we had a positive Covid case in our house before the vaccine even had a chance to leave my arm, let alone help the rest of me. Jason has since done some research regarding the rapid test William took and found it is in fact VERY inaccurate in asymptomatic individuals. Man would that have been nice to know! In the end we’re healthy. We’re thankful, and we’re still being very careful knowing we could have just as easily gotten an actual positive test result. We’re almost there guys. Go get vaccinated as soon as it’s your turn and hopefully by summer/fall this can be just a not-so-distant memory.
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