When we first began to hear about Coronavirus / COVID-19 back at the beginning of March, I suspect that none of us had any idea what was about to happen. A global pandemic, while it has certainly happened before in history, is unprecedented in our lifetimes. All of our lives changed. For the first few days or weeks of quarantined, we thought that the break from normal life was kind of nice. However, I think you will agree that that wore off FAST.
We have kids who have fragile health. My (Chris) immune system is weak, at best and I catch everything that comes along. Needless to say, we took drastic measures to protect ourselves and our family. The Summer, which is usually exhausting because we are so busy, turned into a vast desert of inactivity. We got to the end of the summer and looked back and wondered if we had accomplished anything at all. The Summer lasted forever and it also flew by. I’m sure you feel the same way about how weird time has been over these months.
Five weeks ago, we had an outbreak of COVID-19 at church. One Sunday, there was apparently at least one person who had the virus and it spread to many people. Including me. It got me hard. There is no need to go through all the details because you know what the range of symptoms are. I have gotten through the dangerous symptoms involving respiration but it has left me exhausted. It is like nothing I have ever experienced. I have a couple of good days where I feel weak but I have energy to do some normal things. Then I have a day, two, or three where I can barely stand up and walk across the room and I feel so exhausted that I can barely speak because it takes to much energy that I just cannot muster.
I am not complaining. It is just where I am in my recovery. There really is no data to say how long it will last. We are praying that it is not a permanent thing. We believe that it is not and the doctors we have spoken with have indicated that it will pass. There is just not a timeline because everyone is affected differently. We have found many things to be grateful for.
I never got the point that I had to go to a hospital here. I cannot quantify what a blessing that is. I had access to American made medicines, including Advil and Tylenol to fight the fever. We have the space that I was able to be completely isolated from everyone for over two weeks. If anyone else got the virus from me, they did not have the serious symptoms. We suspect that a couple more people in the house did, in fact, get it. However, they had very light cases. That is a huge blessing. Those are just a few of the things fill our hearts with gratitude to the Lord.
Everyone here in our home is either healthy or on the road to being healthy. Thank you for your concern and your prayers. If you sent us notes or questions over the last month about how we were doing, please know that we got and read all the notes even though we were simply unable to respond to everyone. We feel your love and support and are humbly grateful for it!
COVID-19 infections have increased drastically here in Ukraine. We hit a new daily record high of new infections almost every day right now. There are lots of discussions about different types of quarantine that may or may not happen. It seems unlikely that we will return to any type of full shut-down as it would be devastating to the already fragile economy.
We count it all joy!
Thank you for your continued prayers and support!
