I Will Never Regret Taking COVID-19 Seriously
I want you to try an exercise. Close your eyes and conjure a time when you took your child to the pediatrician for what you thought will be a run-of-the-mill sick visit. Kids get sick, we take them in, we go home, and eventually they beat the virus. In the office, the nurse takes the temp and checks the vitals. They weigh your precious runny-nosed tiny human. You explain the litany of symptoms while snuggling your sick baby on your lap. I’m sure your memories feel very routine right now.
For some of us, the routine often looks different. There may be some of you who’ve been immediately sent to the hospital because the pediatricians feel your child is far sicker than you thought or they can manage with a quick in-office visit or antibiotics.
If this has never happened to you, well you’re very lucky! I’m jealous, wholeheartedly, that you get to live in a world where you didn’t keep a go-bag at hand just in case you and your child ended up in the hospital…again. There are those of us who have that bag packed or at least quick pack it at the first signs of illness. There are those of us that it’s happened to five times, or maybe ten. Then there are those of us that if we sat down for a good eight hours, we couldn’t recall all the of times we’ve been sent to the hospital with our child.
I am one of those moms. The mom that would show up to the pediatrician again with her very ill child and the front desk would joke, “Have you moved since we saw you two days ago?” I’d smile, maybe chuckle, to hide the anxious bile rising in my esophagus, trying to look calm and collected. Although, I was likely fooling no one. Those moments always leave me exhausted and ragged looking.
As news coverage about some mysterious respiratory virus across the globe began to trickle through in late January, my ears immediately perked up. I have a kid with asthma. I have asthma. Whenever I hear the words contagious respiratory infection I cringe and suck in a breath, maybe trying to remind myself that we aren’t sick yet and can still breathe. Then, I brace myself, and I scour sources for as much scientific information as I can, because any facts I find will 99% of the time pertain to my family. I watched, listened, and read voraciously, hoping that it might be like other epidemics, something that faded out and the media kind of…
