We've questioned every headache, analyzed every cough, and swabbed every drippy nose through the last two years of pandemic-ing, only to find with each rapid-test of our sicknesses that they were never...the one.
So when Eli started complaining about a headache one Wednesday, we didn't think too much of it. How many headaches had he complained of through the year that were more of an attempt to get out of school than they were an actual sickness?
On Thursday, Jeff started to notice one of his eyes had turned a little red, which was slightly troubling.
You see, my Mom had just cancelled Thanksgiving on us due to her catching Covid. She passed it to my sister who had just spent the past few days relaying their symptoms with daily health updates, and one of their Covid red flags was a pesky red eye.
So between the headache and the red eye, we decided to get Eli and Jeff tested on Friday. Right away both tests showed positive.
The rest of us felt great. Eli seemed to be through the worst of his symptoms, and Jeff crashed Saturday with a fever and exhaustion that lasted through Sunday.
My throat started to hurt a tiny bit on Saturday and Sunday, and I started feeling groggy on Monday. Carson got a fever Saturday and seemed back to normal Sunday. Lincoln and Jonah both got runny noses on Monday.
We got everyone tested on Monday and found out we all had it.
By Monday, Jeff was mostly feeling better, but his one eye had become really red and started hurting. He said it felt like he had sand in his eye, even though he knew there was nothing in there. I kept comparing Jeff's symptoms to my sister's symptoms, and this is where they parted ways.
My sister's eye was only red for a day or two and never really hurt. Jeff's eye, however, was getting more and more red with increased discomfort. I reached out to my uncle who is an Optometrist and he told us to ice the eye, take Ibuprofen, and go see someone if his vision got blurry.
By Tuesday, Jeff's vision became blurry and his eye wasn't letting up. He saw a teledoctor that same day who told him the same thing my uncle told him and prescribed some antibiotic drops for his eye. Once again, the doctor told him if his vision stayed blurry, to go see someone.
By Thursday, Jeff's vision hadn't improved, and the pain kept getting worse. We began calling around to try to get him seen by an ophthalmologist. This is what I will title The Series of Unfortunate Events that now leave me completely sick to my stomach whenever I think about them.
- Jeff needed to be seen by a specialized eye doctor.
- Jeff was on day 7 of a 10-day quarantine, and all the eye doctors we called refused to see him until he was out of quarantine.
- We read about viral conjunctivitis which sounded exactly like what he was feeling. It said you might experience blurry vision and have discomfort for up to 3 weeks, and there's not really anything you can do for it but wait it out. Did he just have viral conjunctivitis we needed to wait out? I said multiple times, "I feel like either it's nothing or you're going blind and no one will see us to tell us which one it is."
- We were stuck to wait it out until Saturday when his quarantine ended.
- His quarantine ended SATURDAY! No eye doctors are open on Saturday and Sunday!
- We kept thinking his eye would surely get better on its own, but it just kept getting worse and worse so by Saturday we were completely desperate with zero options.
- He went to urgent care on Saturday. They gave him more antibiotics and told him they don't really treat eyes...they'd have to refer him to an ophthalmologist...
- SEE NUMBER FIVE!
We were stuck in this Covid circle of helplessness and despair. It was so sad and frustrating and in hindsight (...which is always *cringe* 20/20...), I wish we would have gone to the ER, but at the time we didn't think they'd be able to help either because we thought they would also do nothing more than refer us to an ophthalmologist.
Sunday night was awful. Jeff was sure he was going blind and felt like he had no one to help him and he was in a lot of pain. We were counting down every minute until Monday morning when he could finally get into a doctor's office.
When Monday morning finally came, we realized more unfortunate events...
I had Covid! All the kids had Covid! I wanted to have someone come give Jeff a blessing...but wait...Covid...I wanted to drive Jeff to the doctor to be with him for his appointment...but wait...Covid. I was worried he'd be rushed to emergency eye surgery, but who could watch our kids?! The circumstances were an absolute nightmare that left us constantly bumping up against brick walls.
Jeff ended up driving himself to the doctor in excruciating pain while only being able to see out of one eye. The absolute miracles of this entire experience are:
1.) He didn't crash on the way.
2.) The doctor happened to have two cancellations that morning so they were able to have an opening for Jeff first thing in the morning.
At the appointment, the doctor told Jeff he was literally one day away from going blind. I don't know how it all works, but I guess some part of Jeff's eye was sticking to his iris and if it closes around all 360 degrees, that's how you go blind. Jeff's eye was stuck 340/360 degrees.
Basically, Jeff's body was attacking his eye and causing it to become seriously inflamed and close in on itself?
The doctor told Jeff he was practically blind and then left him alone with a treatment on his eye for a few minutes. Jeff texted me and told me it was serious.
Based on the doctor's initial reaction to Jeff's eye, we felt a wave of dread as we faced the high probability that he was going to be blind or at best, have his vision permanently damaged. Right away both of us were so sick and nearly puked. I felt awful he was there all by himself getting this news. I realized right away his job requires him to have vision in both of his eyes, so the weight of this huge life change PLUS the possibility of him losing his job all came crashing down on us. I felt so sick we didn't get him help faster. I felt so helpless trapped in our Covid home where no one could help us if he needed surgery or something. It was terrible!
I sat with that news for an hour, imagining every tragic outcome of our lives, before Jeff called again. He reiterated he was almost blind, but sounded much more lighthearted and hopeful as he explained that the dilation drops helped loosen things up to save him from going blind. Sigh of relief. Also with the help of some steroid drops, the swelling should go down. Whew. And that should clear everything up.
Hold up! We went from irreversibly blind to surgery-free eyedrop treatment all in an hour's time?!? It felt very much like a real-life interaction with this doctor from Arrested Development:
Okay, so it ended up being a little more than a few eyedrops and it was a little bit more serious than some blue paint. Jeff is actually on a very regimented eye drop schedule of steroids, dilation medicine, and saltwater (plus two bonus steroid shots IN the eye that really did the trick)! However, we were completely relieved to learn Jeff wouldn't need an emergency surgery, and especially after his second appointment, the doctor was confident Jeff would completely regain his ability to see.
The doctor diagnosed Jeff with Uveitis. What is so wild though is Uveitis usually takes several months to make you go blind (from what I've read anyway), so we're all completely baffled as to why his eye was on the super-speed track to blindness.
Jeff's vision is improving every day now, and he's been having regular (think daily) appointments with the eye doctor who every day is as shocked as we are by how close Jeff was to going blind. Jeff does still have a lot of tests the doctor has ordered for him to make sure there aren't any underlying conditions, so we aren't completely in the clear yet. He also made it sound like Jeff could get flare-ups of Uveitis or he might need cataract surgery in the near future, but all of that beats the alternative of being blind!
We are still in shock and denial about this whole experience. It is by far *read as a Bachelor voiceover* the most dramatic thing that has ever happened to us. And I feel like it has to correlate to Jeff having Covid. The doctor thinks it's kind of coincidental Jeff had this Uveitis creep up right when he got Covid, but I think they're related and I worry the same thing could happen to someone else!
So there's my cautionary tale. Tell your friends, family, and loved ones that if their eyes turn pink with Covid and start to hurt and ESPECIALLY if vision gets blurry...it could be more than just a little pink eye, so don't hesitate to get the help you need!
The rest of us are doing well. The little guys barely had any symptoms. They had slight runny noses, and occasionally complained of headaches. Carson was out for a day feeling feverish and has lost his appetite here and there through the last two weeks. Eli had headaches and maybe a slight runny nose.
I felt really crummy for about 3 days with a major runny nose, random bursts of the sweats, easily out of breath, midnight sneeze attacks (I woke up one night sneezing. That's never happened to me before), and the most persistent symptom has been exhaustion. My eyes never turned red at all. We did all lose our taste and smell for about two days. Jonah refused to eat anything he couldn't taste (which was everything), so we're all glad to be tasting, smelling, and eating again.
We have all made it through our ten days of quarantine, but I'm finding I still get tired easily and when I really tire myself out I have had some dizziness, especially at the end of the day. I've been cautioned to be careful getting back into exercise after Covid, and as much as it pains me to continue to rest, I can tell my body isn't ready to handle a full-blown workout.
We are super interested to know if we had Delta or Omicron. We didn't really get coughs at all. Runny noses, sneezing, and hot flashes/feeling feverish were our most noticeable symptoms and that seems to match up with Omicron, but Nevada had only reported their first Omicron case the day we tested positive, so if we had Omicron, we were potentially some of the first in Nevada to get it, leading me to believe it was probably Delta? Who knows.
We are hoping we are now forever immune to Covid and all of its variants. Please let it be that...easy?
