Rey Perez is a major in Communications and a senior at Nova Southeastern University. He is from Summit, New Jersey and has been a part of Student Media since his first year in college.
The holiday season is a time for family, friends, love and that good old holiday cheer. However, last year, another surprise laid under the tree, on the hands of loved ones and in the air: coronavirus.
My trip to my native New Jersey was brief. It was accompanied by a negative test result and mask dedication that would rival Micheal Myers. All guidelines were followed and precautions were taken. Everything that could have been done was done, and even then, I got COVID-19.
In spite of a pandemic, life goes on. People visited the house, family members visited other’s houses and I, too, went out. However, the cause of the infection had become increasingly clear once a diagnosis was given — it had come from a neighboring house where more family members lived and had infected almost all of them a couple of days before my arrival. The virus had made its way to us by one of the family members visiting the house.
The virus spread throughout the entire house, hitting three family members before it finally hit me. On the first day of symptoms, it was not obvious at all. It was so inconspicuous that for four days I thought it was just a cold. I had no fever, only horrible nausea and a bad cough. The cough was wet, and I lacked the infamous tightened lungs that so many who get the virus report. That is to say, it was easy to misdiagnose. Also keeping in mind that the common cold is very common in the wintertime up north, I can hardly remember a single winter where I was not huddled by a space heater, sneezing.
It was not until I returned to Florida that I found out that my grandparents had COVID-19. I was contacted by a few concerned relatives who were quick to wrongly lay blame, but a few of them were sensible enough to come to their own conclusions after hearing the whole story. Either way, it was a silly and meaningless soap opera to add on to the stress of having my grandfather in the hospital and being sick with it myself.
My recovery was quick and very successful. Although I worry about how this might impact my future health, for now, I feel like a million bucks. My main worry, however, was for my grandfather. He spent about three days in the hospital due to a low oxygen level. I called him every day to keep him company and he repeated to me that the worst part of it was that he was not allowed to do anything, but watch TV. After those three days, he was deemed healthy enough to return home. What can I say? The man’s a tank.
NSU handled the situation very well. They reached out to me personally to ask how I was doing each day and let me know when I could stop quarantining.
The distressing moral of this story is that, even if someone does everything they can to keep from getting this virus, they are still susceptible to it. By some unlucky twist of fate, even the most cautious can end up contracting it. So please, do your part, protect your loved ones and just wear a mask.
