We like to share our personal lives with our couples and all of you that follow our blog/ work. And I questioned myself about sharing this personal information but we have shared a lot about our personal lives from buying a home to our children’s birth stories over the years and this is just another part of our journey.

We recently survived the Coronavirus (or what we thought was the virus), and yes the virus itself, not quarantine life.

It was definitely one of those moments of time, where you think, this will not happen to you, but it does.

Like the rest of the world, we learned about the virus and just went with the changes. It seemed like every day, week, and even month information was changing and let’s be real it was been hard to keep up. When our state went into the “stay at home” phase, we did too. We did our best to stay at home. We didn’t see friends, we zoomed (is that a word, now?) with our small groups. We didn’t visit any stores but the grocery store, etc.

Through all of this Daniel was our “chosen” person to live life on the outside, as it were. He went to work normally, he did all the grocery shopping and any errands that were needed. He also can handle wearing a mask. Personally, wearing a mask gives me anxiety. I really struggle wearing a mask, so I just didn’t ever leave our home in the beginning stages of the Covid-19 saga for the United States.  I am starting to get used to it now, but I still try my best to avoid it and stay at home with kids while Daniel runs the errands.

We thought we had made it through the worse of it, surviving quarantine life. The State of Virginia started to “reopen” again, we started to visit friends, and hang out in slightly larger groups. We started to enjoy the blessings of seeing people and community.

Then the other day, everything took a turn for our family. Daniel came home from work and felt awful. We weren’t sure if he had the virus or maybe something else, but we did immediately isolate him. He had a lot of the symptoms of the virus (chills, nausea, fatigue, a little cough, high fever, etc.), so the following day he went to get tested. *His test was negative, when we finally got the results a week later!

For a week, Daniel lived in isolation living in our master bedroom/bathroom. He spent several days with a very high fever and very fatigued. And he spent a lot of time sleeping and resting. His body slowly fought it and is now fever free. And even back at work.

Here is what we have learned :

-wear a mask, wash your hands, and if you think it can’t happen to you, it can

-even though Daniel wears a mask at work and the stores, he managed to catch something somewhere

-if you think you have it immediately isolate yourself and get tested soon (it takes forever to get results)

-texting your friends that you “might” have exposed them is heartbreaking. We had visited and seen a few different friends on Thursday and Friday. And Daniel was sick starting Saturday. It was awful to know that I may have potentially spread it to them and their families. (Everyone is healthy, though, Praise the Lord!).

Here is how we “survived” :

-Daniel lived in isolation in our master bedroom. That meant that I had been “living” in our living room. I had a pile of clothes on a side table and the couch was my bed (I did try an air mattress, but the kids thought it was a trampoline, so that had to go.) And I used our hall bathroom along with our kids.

-The kids were not allowed to be near Daniel or within 6 feet of him. Daniel stayed in the bedroom pretty much at all times. I delivered food and drink to him, by cracking the bedroom door and sliding the plate/drinks onto his night side, which is near the door. From there it was all on Daniel. And that is one of the many hard parts about this situation. I couldn’t help him at all. I could not comfort him, or help him get items in the room, etc.

-Leftovers, frozen meals, and a meal (or two) from a friend. We basically have a 3 year old and 1 year old (I’m rounding their ages a little bit), so dinner time can be hard. Everyone gets tired, grumpy, and making dinner can be difficult, especially when it’s just one parent trying to do it all. Luckily, we had some food already and we had a dear friend drop off a meal on our porch, which was a blessing. *A few friends continued to bring meals just to make sure we were okay.

-Food Delivery. I started using Shipt for ordering groceries and anything we needed. Our household went under a serious lock down. We really wanted to make sure we didn’t spread whatever Daniel had.

-“new ” toys and care packages. Oh what a blessing!! Our closest friends dropped off some of their old toys/toys their kids have out grown and it was a huge blessing. Our kids have been playing and doing the same things over and over again since March. It was been wonderful to watch them play together with new toys. They have been so excited to have something new to play with. We even had a friend send an Amazon box with Mess Free coloring sheets, etc. for our kids. And these new toys have allowed me to clean, do extra laundry, and keep our house going, while Daniel had been sick.

-Grace, patience, and a lot of coffee. The Lord has given me a lot of grace and patience with our children. There were very long days taking care of two little ones ALL. DAY. LONG. on top of all the house needs. Kylie went back to skipping her naps during all of this, and of course both of  our children decided to wake up earlier that week. It was a lot to navigate. Kylie understands what it is like to be sick but Leland doesn’t. He also couldn’t seem to wrap his brain around the fact that Daniel was home, but he couldn’t see Daddy. Poor Leland; he was confused. And of course, I had to explain yet again to Kylie that we can’t visit friends or see anyone, which was heartbreaking. But there has been a lot grace and patience with everyone and a lot of coffee drinking!

-lots and lots of cleaning. I really didn’t want this virus to hit us all, so I cleaned everything. I changed sheets, towels, and washed our kids special blankets. Couch covers, throw pillows, etc. have all been washed. Toys, door knobs, light switches, TV remotes, etc. have been sanitized.

It was an exhausting week in our household. Daniel was physically exhausted from being sick and I was physically/mentally exhausted from trying to do everything (on top of extra cleaning) with two young children.

I know that was a lot to read! We are ALL healthy and fine, now. Daniel’s test was negative and he was told to come back to work. But, I wanted to share our experience on how we “survived” what we thought might be Coronavirus.