Fun times… 
(None of us have symptoms yet, but someone who was in our house for an extended amount of time several times in the past couple weeks tested positive yesterday.)
Well that escalated quickly... we’re all showing mild symptoms. Our youngest (who had the most contact with the infected person) has had a fever off and on since last night.
We went to the state’s free drive-though testing this morning and it was ridiculous. Each car was taking 10-15 minutes as they manually entered each person’s data into a computer. We got their early and were number ~30, but bailed. 4+ hours in the car with kids wasn’t worth it.
As we drove away and started looking for cash-pay options (turns out it was probably a bad year to switch to a super high deductible, non-ACA insurance plan) my wife an I had a conversation about how poorly low-income populations are being served. https://t.co/XcvD5a7Z8c
6/ We could’ve pre-registered & zipped right through, but the wording made it seem like that wasn’t needed. Even with bad insurance that might not cover the test, we can afford to cash-pay and go get a test in like 10min. But no wonder so many people still aren’t getting tested.
7/ We ordered groceries and are preparing for a rough week if any of us start getting more severe symptoms. I’m going to get a new Switch game “for the kids”. Which one should I get?
8/ Welp, we had a fantastic day! Ben (our youngest) was a bit cranky, but doesn’t seem to be any worse than he was last night. The other kids are a bit achy and have stomach aches. Elizabeth and I feel fantastic. We were told not to test since our symptoms are so mild.
9/ It’s starting to really set in how insidious this disease is. Texas seems to be doing very little contact tracing (no one in this chain has been contacted at all, ahem @GovAbbott), if we weren’t told directly that we were exposed, we would’ve never thought this was COVID.
10/ We’ve been super careful and would have maybe passed it on to the one family in our neighborhood we’ve let our kids play with this whole time. But so many other people in Texas are going to the gym, restaurants, etc. pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic.
11/ Since early March we’ve only let 2 adults and 2 kids into our home. We’ve worn masks everywhere we’ve gone indoors (only for shopping and order pickup) and have been careful outdoors. All it took is one of those 2 adults letting their guard down.
12/ (*We did visit a few family members on Memorial Day and in hindsight that was more risky than it seemed at the time.)
13/ Now we all have fevers and Ben was in pretty rough shape this morning. Oh, and just to make things more interesting our AC went out yesterday afternoon. Sure hope today is the worst of it.
14/ The person who exposed us was likely exposed without knowing it on the 31st, then exposed us on the 4th, 5th, and 8th. Their symptoms peaked with a high fever on the 11th, then quickly dissipated. I’m wondering if multiple exposures is going to make it worse for us.
15/ Lesson: if you don’t want to get COVID, don’t spend time indoors with anyone who might be taking unnecessary risk. We had conversations with this person about the continued risk, but didn’t draw a line in the sand or press too hard about exactly what risks they were taking.
16/ Here’s the testing site we went to yesterday. Now that my wife and I are both more symptomatic, one of us is going to go cash pay for a test, but we’re already 99.9% sure we have it. kvue.com/article/news/h…
17/ Unless we have a second wave of symptoms, me and all my kids seem to be completely over COVID. My wife still isn’t feeling great, but it’s more like a cold or allergies than even a mild flu.
18/ Yesterday morning was pretty scary though. Ben (2 yrs old) got really pale and lethargic with a racing heart beat. While calling around to figure out which ER we should take him to, my wife nursed him and he bounced right back. Was super happy & energetic the rest of the day.
19/ We took him to the pediatrician a few hours later just to be sure. The nurse practitioner spent the whole time trying to convince my wife (I was home with the other kids) it wasn’t COVID even though all the symptoms point to it and we were heavily exposed to a known case. 🤦🏼♂️
20/ Local ER is still recommending we don’t test since our symptoms are so mild (and the nurse practitioner recommended not putting a 2-year-old through the nasal swab). We’re going to wait one more day and do the free state provided testing tomorrow in a neighboring city.
21/ I felt like I knew a lot about COVID from following the news the past few months, but once you actually get it, trying to figure out what to do is a mess. So much conflicting information, and old news is surfaced higher on Google than actionable information.
22/ It took me a while to find the CDC guidelines and they conflict with what the Apple COVID app says:
23/ Not like we’re going to be going to restaurants or doing anything else high-risk, but I’m trying to figure out when it’s OK for me to responsibly go grocery shopping again. (And I guarantee most people aren’t bothering to research like I am.)
24/ Yup. This is part of why I’ve been tweeting about it. As cases skyrocket here in Texas I have a front row seat to how poorly it’s being handled.
25/ 🤦🏼♂️ One of many sources on this stat: nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
