My second oldest son C started feeling feverish one evening, worried that he had contracted COVID-19, I told him, “Hey, it could be anything, your fever is not over 99.8.” He told me he was also coughing and about an hour later I did hear the dry cough. He asked me if he could go to the hospital and I told him the hospital only wants to see severe cases. I told him since he was a chronic asthmatic if he had any symptoms of shortness of breath I would not delay in taking him.

I continued to take his temperature as well as bring him assorted juices, green tea, and water. He recovered in 3 days. During his last days of recovery, my youngest son told me he felt hot. His temperature got up to 102 degrees for 3 days. I gave home Tylenol and fluids. His sister was also sick for a day with just a dry cough. Immediately after the kids recovered, I suffered complete loss of smell for four days. I remember eating a Subway sandwich (Italian B. M. T.) the night before I lost my smell and it didn’t taste as flavorful as it usually did. The next morning for some reason I went to smell the Dial bath soap and couldn’t smell a thing. I then tried to smell lemons, bleach, vinegar, and Vick’s vapor rub, but there was not a trace. I cooked potatoes and while they were burning I never knew. I was beginning to panic because losing one’s sense of smell is so alien and foreign.

We may not think of it too much but it adds so much enjoyment to life; to taste the full flavor of food, to link back to a memory, to be alert. The loss was depressing, mood-altering and I wondered when it would return. When I lost my sense of smell is when I knew that my family was suffering from COVID-19. This had never happened in my life. Imagine how excited I was to wake up on the fourth day and attempt to smell lotion. The slightest wave of creamy, airy, floral scent tingled my brain cells. I yelled, “I can smell!” “ I can smell!” The kids probably thought I was nutty, but I really was appreciative to regain the sense I had lost.

A month after we all recovered we got tested for COVID-19 and the antibodies. We are all negative for COVID-19, but positive for the antibodies. (Oldest son not mentioned previously was asymptomatic at the time of the family’s illness and positive for antibodies as well.)