Mum reveals family’s differing Covid symptoms

A mum-of-three has revealed how the Covid symptoms in her child were wildly different from her husband’s and her own.

Today is my first day working after a week off with Covid-19. I’m still in isolation, and while my body has recovered, my mind is struggling to keep up. I’m tired and forgetful so please bear with me. (Yes, I had to search ‘bear versus bare’ because my memory isn’t great right now.)

You see, before I caught the so-called “spicy cough”, I spent months symptom-spotting. Was my scratchy throat Covid, or just my regular allergies? I felt a bit dizzy on my morning walk; was this ‘it’ or was it because I hadn’t eaten breakfast?

Now that I’m on the other side, I suggest you don’t even bother symptom-spotting … because if it wasn’t for three positive test results I would have assumed my husband, my son and I all had different viral illnesses.

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Claire, Anthony and their children: Olivia (7), Samuel (13) and Charlie (11).

Covid for my husband was like a horrible head cold

My husband (in his forties) was the first to contract Covid in our household as far as we know. (I have my suspicions about our teenage son who had a slight sniffle but tested negative on a RAT the week before.) My husband’s first symptom was sneezing on a Saturday morning. I gave him a hayfever tablet but he continued to sneeze and since we were meeting up with friends that night for dinner, he took a rapid antigen test to make sure it wasn’t Covid.

Lucky he did, because the test instantly came up positive with two clear lines. We immediately isolated him from the rest of the family.

I did a rapid antigen test and it came up negative so I moved into my daughter’s bedroom and masked up to deliver food and water along with medications. We live with my in-laws who are in their 80s and not in the best of health, and our two younger children were yet to receive their vaccinations, so we had strict rules to protect them and us.

My husband spent the next few days in bed, with a temperature, cough, blocked nose, night sweats and regular bellowing sneezes.

Covid for him was, in his words, “like a really bad head cold with body aches, a cough and fatigue”.

Anthony was positive and Claire was negative on the first Saturday morning.

Covid in our son was completely different

In the early hours after my husband tested positive, our 11-year-old son Charlie woke up at 1am and projectile vomited in the hallway just outside the bathroom.

He took a RAT the following morning which was negative and he was back to normal so we put it down to something he ate or a tummy bug.

Two days later he woke at 4am with a temperature of 39.4 degrees and this time, he made it to the toilet where he spent the next 20 minutes being sick.

We both did RATs later that morning – Charlie’s was a faint but clear positive, mine was negative again.

For Charlie, Covid had its perks – he got his usually-shared bedroom to himself along with the PlayStation – but bizarrely, he did vomit every second day and had high temperatures in the morning.

Outside of that hour, every second morning, he has been like a normal child … just isolated from the rest of the family, living his best gamer life.

He vomited on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and again this morning, nine days after the first time.

Claire, working in her PJs in Olivia’s bedroom next to her mattress on the floor.

Covid for me was like giving birth

After spending a few days up and down throughout the nights with a sick child and husband, sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my daughter’s bedroom, I started to feel really tired. Like in the early days of pregnancy when you fall asleep sitting up eating ice cream on the couch. I still had my throat tickle, but I wondered if it was getting a little worse or if I was imagining it again.

I’d tested negative on two RATs, but I knew I wasn’t myself. I couldn’t concentrate well enough to write an article properly. My throat had crossed from “is it a tickle?” territory well into “yep, I’m sick” territory, so I drove to my nearest Covid testing site for a more accurate PCR test.

After 32 hours of trying to avoid everyone in the house while also caring for them and cleaning and preparing food, the results came back positive. I moved back into my bedroom with my sick husband wondering how many days I’d been infectious around my vulnerable in-laws and two remaining healthy children. I could barely stand up with body aches, but I quickly whisked through the house armed with Pine-O-Clean wipes on doorknobs and light switches. I kept retreating back to my bedroom to take my mask off and catch my breath.

For me, Covid has been like those first few days after childbirth when you’re so tired you can’t think straight. Brain fog has me starting sentences then forgetting what I was saying, and I can sleep for 12 hours straight then still struggle to get out of bed to go to the toilet in the mornings. Oh, and moving towels from the washing machine to the dryer has me catching my breath afterwards.

Poor Charlie has had his symptoms the longest.

Covid symptoms according to NSW Health

You see, no matter how many times I had read up on symptoms, I could not have predicted how differently each one of us would have felt. The list of possible symptoms is so long, each person can experience several at once, others can experience several wildly different ones.

NSW Health lists the following as typical symptoms of Covid-19:

• fever (37.5C or higher)

• cough

• sore throat

• shortness of breath (difficulty breathing)

• runny nose

• loss of taste

• loss of smell

Other reported symptoms include:

• fatigue

• acute blocked nose (congestion)

• muscle pain

• joint pain

• headache

• diarrhoea

• nausea/vomiting

• loss of appetite

You can’t guess which of the above boxes you will personally tick, and in my experience, you also can’t rely on RATs. If you have any symptoms at all but you’re coming up negative on a self-test, make sure you’ve got enough petrol and some adult nappies and line up for that PCR!

And stay safe. x

(And enjoy this article that took me waaaaaay too long to write!)

This article originally appeared on Kidspot and was reproduced with permission