Yesterday Paloma woke up with a high fever - 102.4 - and a bad headache. She was hot and lethargic all day. Tylenol and ibuprofen brought the fever down to about 101, but no lower, and didn’t really touch the headache.
We are being told to assume that any febrile illness might be Covid19 and to behave accordingly. The lack of respiratory symptoms doesn’t mean much in a kid her age - fever is often the only symptom, if indeed they show any symptoms at all. So I called my work and asked them to cancel all my appointments through the end of next week and we decided to step up the level of quarantine to “nobody leaves the house unless it’s absolutely essential.”
I sent messages to the mothers of each of my daughter’s best friends to let them know. These two kids are the only people Hope or Paloma has had contact with in the past two weeks, and they were ostensibly practicing social distancing the whole time.
The most likely scenario is that I brought the virus (whichever virus it is) home with me from work. You’d think, that if I had contact first I would show symptoms first, but not necessarily. The incubation period varies. So now we just wait and see if any more of us get sick. Paloma is already better. This morning she woke up without a fever and says her head hurts a lot less.
Hope and I were supposed to be in Chicago right now, touring the University of Chicago campus. We had a three day weekend planned, which included staying with my cousins who I haven’t seen in many years, seeing the Chicago Field museum, and meeting up with my brother for a very fancy dinner at a very fancy famous restaurant. Instead we are staying home taking our temperatures. Oh well.
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