Not only are we using these CaringBridge posts to keep everyone updated on Susan's progress, Susan also wants to use these updates as a "diary" of sorts about her journey, and I am taking a bit of artistic license on this entry.  Please bear with me.

I am a Charlie Brown fan, so I thought I would summarize the last week in the Thomas house with the most iconic Charlie Brown cartoon of all time.  Let's introduce the main players:

• Charlie Brown = collectively, Susan, Sydney, Aubrey (she likes to be called "Bree") and me.
• The Football = a nice, easy, no-drama recovery from Susan's reconstructive surgery.  After all, that is Charlie Brown's main focus right now.
• Lucy = COVID-19, whatever the variant "de jure" happens to be now - I've lost track.

After 26 months of trying to be very careful in light of Susan's autoimmune issues and cancer diagnosis, getting us all vax'd and boosted, and successfully avoiding COVID, it decided to hit us at the most inopportune time ... within a couple days after Susan got home from her reconstructive surgery.

We think Bree got it first.  On Monday - the day after Susan got home from the hospital - Bree went to the nurse's office at school with a headache,  No fever or other symptoms so she went back to class to finish the day.  The next day, she had another headache, but still no fever at school.  By that evening, she was feeling pretty crappy, with a sore throat and started to run a fever, so the next day (Wednesday), I took her to the pediatrician.  Negative for strep and flu, and because she was vax'd and boosted, our pediatrician thought COVID was unlikely.  What a relief.  He said there is another flu-like virus that he has been seeing a lot, so that's was he thought it was - we went home and Bree rested.  Tylenol as needed for the headache and fever.

Sydney and I got it next.   By Wednesday night, I was starting to feel really worn out, but no fever or other symptoms.  Just really tired, and I chalked it up to exhaustion since the whole family had been burning the candle at 3 ends for a while.  Bree stayed home from school because she had not been fever-free for 24 hours.  

By Thursday, I was feeling a bit worse with a low fever that went away with Tylenol.  At this point, I was still not thinking COVID until Sydney complained that night that she did not feel good.  So we checked her temperature and she was running a fever.  If you are keeping track, that's 75% of the Thomas house (minus our golden doodle) with fevers at the same time ... not good.

So, out came our stash of COVID home tests.  Sydney, Bree and I all tested positive.  Susan was negative...thank God!  Faithful to the CDC guidance on how to handle a COVID positive scenario, we donned our masks and went into quarantine mode and retreated to our respective parts of the house away from Susan.  Susan was negative, so "we got this."  It would just make the logistics of helping her a bit more challenging, but we would work it out (a "pivot" as we like to say at my office).

Friday was Sydney's last day of exams, and because she was quarantined but still feeling OK other than a low fever, she was able to take her last exam from home via Zoom. Bree stayed home from school for a 3rd day.

Fortunately, Sydney and Bree made it through with very mild symptoms.  COVID sucker-punched me pretty hard for about 48 hours.  I have not been that sick in more than 10 years.

Throughout the day Friday, I started having more difficulty breathing, was coughing up all sorts of yuck and my temp spiked several times around 104F.  By the evening, I could hardly catch my breath, my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest, and I had some violently bad chills.  I normally don't get sick, so I was thinking that I could ride it out and would be better in the morning. Since Susan is the much smarter adult on our team, she insisted that I go the the ER to make sure I was not developing pneumonia.  I would be no good to help her if this got worse.   So, at 10pm I called my parents who live in the next neighborhood over from us,  and my dad drove me to the ER.  End result...blood work and lungs were clear, just a confirmed bad case of COVID with tachycardia (high heart rate from losing a lot of fluids) and a blood oxygen level drop that was "concerning" to the physician but not bad enough to get me admitted to the hospital.  That was very good news.  After about 90 minutes in the ER hooked up to an IV for fluids and getting some steroid and anti-inflammatory injections, chest X-rays, and trying to get my blood ox levels up, I was discharged and actually felt a bit better.  The treatment did the trick and by Sunday I felt much better.   Would not wish that on anyone, and my case was only "moderate".  I feel completely recovered except that I have lost about 90% of my ability to taste and smell, so hopefully that is temporary. The only thing that smells or tastes normal to me is water. 

Unfortunately, for about 24 hours,  Susan essentially had to fend for herself since the girls and I were all at various levels of incapacitation and we were trying to minimize her exposure - but, in all likelihood she was exposed by us before we even started showing our own symptoms.  I went through a lot of "could-of/should-of/would-of" thoughts, but at the end, I think the die was cast on this one before we even knew we were sick.  Still, Susan was not showing any symptoms and her surgical pain levels had been manageable, so we thought we would make it through without her getting sick.   She had been getting up and moving around the house with the help of her walker, and her strength was getting better.

That is until Susan starting showing COVID symptoms yesterday (Monday) and it got worse into today.  Susan tested positive today, and that was a gut punch.   Her drains are now producing below the threshold for them to be removed, so she was looking forward to getting them removed this Thursday when we are scheduled to have our first follow-up with her surgeon.  Drains are very uncomfortable, and the relief that comes from the getting them removed was something that Susan was looking forward to.  But, as of tonight, we don't know if our surgeon will want Susan to come to the hospital for drain removal since she will be in her quarantine period.  We should learn more tomorrow.  Even a few more days of having to deal with the drains - while also dealing with COVID symptoms - will suck for her.  And, with Susan's history of autoimmune disease, she is at higher risk for worse COVID symptoms, so we are keeping our fingers crossed very tightly that she only has to deal with mild symptoms.

Since the girls and I are through our 5 day quarantine periods (counted from when our symptoms started), we can at least be thankful that we are in good shape to help Susan as she deals with whatever symptoms COVID tosses at her and whatever decisions we have to make about delaying or moving forward with drain removal.  If there is a delay, it will likely just be a few more days.

If you see Lucy on the playground, let me know.  I will put on my Snoopy suit and rush right over to give her a big, sloppy dog kiss ... because she hates that.