I had a breakthrough COVID infection, and it made me even more grateful for the vaccine

When COVID-19 first emerged as a threat in my area, I shut it down – and by that I mean my family of six went out of business. No more trips to the store or meeting friends. Our kids have switched to online learning and my husband’s job has become distant. For the next 18 months, we lived as buttoned up as possible, especially because I was pregnant. My husband, teenager and I were vaccinated as soon as the vaccines were available. We would go into hiding whenever we needed to go out, which mostly consisted of visiting doctors’ offices for essential appointments.

Then, in August 2021, our children went back to school, as no online options were offered this year. In a few weeks – boom! My daughter, who had masked herself every day, came home from school with the sniffles, and two days later she tested positive for COVID. Although we isolated her, the infection spread throughout the house, with three more of our children testing positive, including our new baby, and finally me.

I was not even surprised to be tested positive, although I was vaxxed. I had heard of cases of major infections, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported it was possible. I had been taking care of sick children for days. In addition, I felt slightly congested. Interestingly, I had used a home test to confirm my COVID status about every two days since our first family member tested positive. Even with symptoms, I tested negative two days before I tested positive.

The night I tested positive, honestly, I felt great and thought, Maybe it won’t be so bad. But when I woke up the next morning, it felt like all of my energy had been drained from my body. My morning yoga ritual consisted of sitting on a pillow with a blanket draped over my shoulders, stretched slightly, with my eyes closed. That first day, however, I felt mostly tired. Even then, I wasn’t too afraid of getting sick. But flash ahead 24 hours, and you might find me curled up in a ball on the floor of our family room as life hissed around me.

The story continues

Related: For Long Haul COVID It May Look Like The Pandemic Will Never End

At that time I felt like an elephant was sitting on my face, I felt so much sinus pressure. The worst part was how exhausted I felt – no other disease had ever leveled me this way. Then it was time for lunch and I started screaming because I couldn’t taste my salad at all. It was the strangest thing – at the end of the day, I ate peaches dipped in ketchup just to make my kids laugh. The whole experience of eating food for the next 10 days revolved around texture. If I had eaten an onion or an apple, I couldn’t have said it.

I also lost my sense of smell. The shower was a strange experience as I couldn’t smell my soap or shampoo. Later that week my husband burned a pizza in the oven and I couldn’t smell the overwhelming smell of burnt crust everyone was complaining about. There were two full days when I was completely useless. I could barely keep my eyes open as I lay back on the sofa, falling in and out of sleep. One night I felt such debilitating body aches that I remember whispering to my husband that it felt like something inside of me was trying to bring me down.

The good news is that about as quickly as I disentangled myself, I regained my will to do something other than exist. I would like to say that after my 10 days of quarantine I was like new, but the truth is I felt tired for days. There were also some lingering symptoms that appeared over the course of a week or two after quitting being infectious, including random body aches and extreme fatigue. It’s been about a month since I tested positive and I feel perfectly fine now. In the end, I am eternally grateful for the vaccine. I was feeling so sick that it scares me to think how much worse it could have been if I hadn’t received the injections. Would I have ended up in the hospital, or worse?

The only silver lining to have gone through COVID is that I should be immune to both the vaccine and the natural infection. I’m a little less afraid to go out into the world and do things, but not a lot. There is a hint of anxiety that invades my thoughts at the moment. Is a new strain going to wipe out our family for weeks? Will my vaccine lose its effectiveness over time? I have a lot of questions, but my take home message is a renewed commitment to do all I can to keep myself and my family safe as this pandemic rages on. COVID is not to be taken lightly.