A PERSONAL PLEA

We received this note from B. Rutledge of the City of Kawartha Lakes. It’s her personal story going through COVID-19 and there are important messages in this for us all.

 April 8, 2020

Covid-19 is like nothing I have ever seen. It takes hold of your body not caring what it is doing. It’s a roller coaster of symptoms and if anyone thinks this is like the flu it is nothing like it, it’s 100x worse. There is a reason why we are being told to social distance, self isolate and quarantine as you do not want to get this. It is a horrible, dreadful virus. We all want to go back to normal, see our family and friends but we won’t for a very long time if we don’t do what we are told to do during this Covid-19 pandemic.

I’m looking after my 65 year old husband who tested positive on March 31.

He started feeling ill March 20 thinking it was a cold/flu bug but on March 26 is when it really kicked in and he started feeling much worse. We had flown back into Toronto from Mexico on March 15 and were told to self isolate for two weeks though at that point they weren’t mandating it. We haven’t been out since then except to go to the Assessment Center in Lindsay. Had we gone out those first few days to get groceries etc we would have been spreading this everywhere we went unknowingly.

I started feeling ill March 18 a couple days before him. We did the self assessment on line and didn’t look like we had it. I assumed mine was a cold/flu. They tested me as well on March 31 but I’ve yet to hear any results. Public Health said that as of March 28 they were only contacting positives which I understand but then a part of me wonders if I had it but extremely mild. Every medical person we’ve spoken to assumed he got it on our way home as we were on two airplanes and in three very packed airports. Now there are more community based cases as at first they were connecting it more to travel. We knew this was serious then but had no idea how fast it would take hold of the world as we know it.

His symptoms at first were mild, a light cough, bit achy, headache but still able to do things. Six days later was when it kicked in and it was almost an instant change. We had a strip thermometer from the 80’s so probably not accurate. Unless you have small kids most of us don’t think we need a good thermometer and now they are nowhere to be found.

We are now on Day 20 of it or Day 14 of being very sick. The past week have been the worse for him with fever going up to 104 (40C). He has extreme fatigue, a terrible cough spitting up mucus ( which is good to get it out ), his whole body aches, chills one moment then boiling hot the next, no appetite so can barely eat anything and has probably lost over 10 pounds. This fever has even caused hallucinations. I’ve never ever seen him or anyone this sick for this long and no one really knows how to treat it except for Tylenol (not ibuprofen as many people have had bad reactions with Covid-19 ) so there really are no answers. They were saying the average span of it was 2 weeks but now they have extended that to 3 weeks which is where he is now. At this point I’m hoping this will ride out and he doesn’t end up on a ventilator in hospital. I don’t know how much more of this he can take.

So please everyone, STAY AT HOME, restrict going out and seeing people and take this seriously. We have to stop this before it gets even worse and only we can do this collectively. Trust me, you do not want to see a loved one go through what I am witnessing now.