Oh my good Lord. What a roller coaster these last few weeks have been.
After getting sick I tried my darn hardest to remain as positive as possible and pour my attention into the girls. But kept getting this nudge to get on here. I had so much planned for my little space during 2020 and although it may look different than planned it's still going to happen. Cannot wait to share everything I have bottled up. But first I wanted to answer some questions about being sick and maybe even just have a place to look back and reflect on these days.
Monday was the first day I woke up and actually had energy, woke at my usual 5am, did a simple ab workout and got ready for another week of virtual schooling. I also wrote out some posts I have really been wanting to finally publish on the site.
First off, I wanted to say THANK YOU for all of the prayers and positive thoughts and light that I have received from so many of you. Being so sick and fearing the absolute worse was a pretty dark time for me. I mean my anxiety has already been so out of wack but this brought a whole different side of worry.
It all started with just an upset stomach that had me feeling just bleh (for lack of better words), then it was followed by the worse body aches and pains of my entire life. I mean I have ran races for hours, I have been in a car accident where the jaws of life were used to get me out of the car, had two emergency c-sections and had never felt such severe body aches. My rib cage felt like I had broken ribs. And the SINUS PRESSURE was unreal, and a low grade fever, all for about 11 days. Lastly the thing that has both my doctor thinking that I had corona virus, was the loss of taste and smell for about 10 days. It's still not 100% back.
During most of the nights I'd wake covered in sweat and in panic. I was in a really dark place, I spent most of the time worried that the trouble breathing (that lots of patients had but I did NOT) would start. I worried that suddenly I'd get worse. That suddenly I too would not be able to breathe (like many of other patients). What would happen if I had to go to the hospital, alone. What if the girls had to see me taken away. Yes the thoughts would absolutely spiral (sometimes irrationally) and the worry kept me up at night.
On day 11 my fever broke and it took about 8 days after that to actually feel better, get my energy and stamina back. I think that was the hard part. I felt so out of control of my own body. I could barely make it through the day and just kept finding myself laying down and watching the girls. I'm beyond grateful to get to this point of simply feeling like my old self, with a whole lot more empathy than I have ever had ( and I know I am a pretty empathetic person).
Now to answer some questions.
Did I get tested?
No I did not. They are asking all New Yorkers that do not have severe symptoms to stay home, quarantine, take tylenol and care for themselves away from others. This is mainly because there are limited tests, but also because of the ER's being beyond capacity. Since my symptoms did not include trouble breathing I did not go into the ER.
Why didn't you go to the hospital?
I got this a lot and answered above but I will also say, NYC is experiencing this cruel virus in an extremely different way than any other city. And it was safer for me to stay home than leave our apartment, risk spreading to others or getting worse. I do have a history of issues with my lungs and autoimmune stuff that had us vigilantly watching for any signs of getting worse.
How do you think you got it, I feel like you guys were being so careful?! When did you go out?
We have been self quarantining for 6+ weeks, and have gone out 3 times during that time. Once to a cardiologist appointment 5 weeks ago, a walk at 7am on a Sunday 4 weeks ago and when I think it happened was going to the pharmacy at Target for prescriptions a week before my first symptom appeared. I social distanced, used sanitizer and did my best to be careful but I think it must have happened there.
Did you quarantine?
Yes. Even though I was not tested we treated it like I had the virus. We refrained from ordering groceries, stayed away from the girls as much as possible and when I was with them kept my mouth covered, hands clean, and disinfected EVERYTHING. We also try and have whomever is sick to using one bathroom, and the rest of the family uses the other. Not possible for everyone but it was a tip we learned from Ami's hematologist! I also made sure we were wiping down everything with a bleach cleaner.
How did you disinfect the house?
Lysol, bleach, thieves, a diffuser with lemon and thieves oil on pretty much all day. We sprayed, wiped, diffused and did it often. Especially the bathrooms, bath and shower. We wipe clean all of our packages, quickly recycle the boxes and let the contents of the box sit in a bag for a day or two. For foods, I am soaking all veggies and fruits in my Thieves veggie wash, wiping down everything else with lysol wipes and allowing everything to air dry. And this is also the key for disinfecting, using lysol wipes or spray is not enough! You have to allow the spray to sit on the surface for some (varying) time for it to be effecting (this is another one of those things we have learned from having a child with an autoimmune disease).
And yes we are using bleach, this account has some awesome cleaning tips, I'm obsessed. You guys all know I love my all natural stuff, and always will but when science tells you only one way kills it and it could help from my family getting sick, then mama is gonna go with it. I suggest YOU do YOU. Do what is best for your family, never ever ever any judgement over here.
How did you keep the rest of the family from getting sick.
Lot's of prayer!!! HA! This is half true but I do think a lot of this is chance. And LOTS of disinfecting (see above). I honestly think that the weeks before of making sure they are sleeping enough, eating whole nutritious filled foods, overdosing on vitamin C filled foods, elderberry gummies and lots of epsom salt baths was the foundation to keeping them healthy (knock on wood).
We also made sure I was super careful, I spent a lot of time apart and when I was close to them I wore a scarf and washed my hands a ton/sanitizer in between washing. But if you know me, you know that these are things we do all year because of Amani's autoimmune disease, she is at higher risk because she is unable to fight infection like another 3 year old. So part of this is our life, the other part is learning from those around me!
What are you doing now to help feel better?
I am sticking to the same things I did while I was sick, taking extra vitamin C, drinking a couple cups of green tea a day, making a delicious immune boosting tea for us all to enjoy, eating whole unprocessed foods, making a smoothie with greens/fruits when my appetite is low. Detox baths for all, epsom salt and baking soda in a bath is my key to helping detox and relieve achey muscles (I talk a lot about this on Instagram!). I have been taking one almost every day while sick. Insane amounts of water to stay hydrated, with lemons and any other citrus we have on hand. Also a pinch of salt in your water will help you if you are dehydrated, better than any sports drink in my opinion.
I have been sticking to foods I can digest well, because we all know gut health is really key to staying healthy. I do this for the girls too, I legit tell them that having something green or a veggie before having dinner helps everything go down smoothly (hilarious but being honest with them about health and foods and what they do for us is important to me).
And sleep, I have been tucking myself in right after the girls bed time every single night, sitting and laying down when I feel like I need it and "not pushing through". I am going to talk more about this in a whole wellness post because I have learned so much from this incredible woman.
We are also taking all of our temperatures twice a day (we do this for Amani during cold and flu season, since a temp over 101 can be very dangerous for her so we keep an eye on it). This allows us to make sure no one is getting sick but also eases my what ifs fears.
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Ok I think I got them all but promise to answer any other questions you may have! So email me or comment here or DM me on IG, open book about this and hope to help someone with it.
Oh and above all I want to say that although I had what seems to be a mild version of the virus (not confirmed if I had it) I will never, ever take for granted being healthy. Being able to move around without pain, tasting and smelling foods and simply being myself feels so incredibly good. I have also witnessed that I can step back a lot more, let the hubby handle cooking or bedtimes because we are in this together and he may not do things the way I do them but he does a dang good job. We as women, as mamas have this incredible ability to just PUSH through but this experience has really graciously taught me that pushing through is sometimes not the answer. That listening to our bodies, our minds and hearts should also be as important as the to-do list.
Forever grateful for this time (sounds so silly but it's true) to be able to care for myself as much as I care for my family.
I hope you are all staying healthy, staying home to protect those that cannot stay home and taking care of yourselves!
xoxo
Natalie
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