COVID-19 DIARY

Grey skies and light rain covered North Andover, Massachusetts on March 13. Friday the 13th, to be exact. 

That afternoon local officials declared all town schools would be closed for several weeks. Ten days later, on Monday, March 23, Governor Charlie Baker issued a stay-at-home advisory for “unnecessary activities.” 

The Lytle house, a yellow Colonial on a quiet street in this northern Massachusetts village, was full to the rafters. Husband John works from home. Sons Jake, a financial data analyst, and Tucker, a car salesman, had just moved back to work remotely. Daughter Tori, 13, was studying social studies and math through “distant learning.”

“We were doing just fine,” Lee Lytle said. 

Then, on Tuesday, March 30, Lee “felt chills and my anxiety skyrocketed.” Lee is seriously asthmatic and struggles with significant allergies. She recalls thinking that her severe headache might just be a sinus infection. But by April 1, she realized her situation was no April Fools joke.

“I could barely get out of bed, I had horrendous chills, a screaming headache and chest tightness,” she says. She “negotiated with Johnny to wait one more day before we call the doctor.” 

Fortunately, they had already stocked the house with groceries. Gloves and masks were part of their daily routine. Johnny took over the household chores and “Tori and the boys were hugely helpful.”

“There was no way for me to go into utter isolation unless it was in the tool shed out back. Our reality was that we’d been in close quarters for the past two weeks. If I was infected, there was a good chance they would be too. But I stayed in our bedroom using Lysol, Purell and Clorox like crazy.” 

Lee contacted her Nurse Practitioner, Savannah, who told her, “You’ve got to be tested. But don’t panic. The person administering the test will walk out to the car in full hazmat.” The day after she was tested, Lee recalls, “I had no energy, not even enough to feel any anxiety.” 

The test proved positive and, over the next few days, the vicious virus flared in every possible way. “I felt total exhaustion,” Lee says. “Picking up the remote and turning on CNN became my only activity. I didn’t drink enough and I felt thirsty all the time. The blasting headache continued. My cough began in earnest, plus sweats and chills, but never a fever over 102.5. I was taking Zithromax, using inhalers and other allergy medicine, plus Tylenol.  NO WAY was I going to the hospital, dammit.”

But Savannah insisted Lee be tested for pneumonia … at the hospital.

“Johnny drove me to ER,” Lee says. “I was positively tearful when he dropped me off at the curb and I had to walk in by myself. He sat for several hours in the parking lot waiting to hear from me. The trepidation of walking into the hospital alone was so different than any other trip when I’d gone there by myself.”

“I was finally able to text John good news — no pneumonia! We drove home and I began drowning myself in water and Gatorade. I stopped talking to help my cough. But my symptoms persisted.” 

Lee’s memory is hazy about the next two weeks, during which she celebrated her 54th birthday. “Honestly, I can only remember two of those 14 days, and a couple of wonderful hopeful moments in between.”

She heard her family “ribbing and making jokes. I could hear the boys helping Tori with her math homework. Sometimes I heard singing while someone was baking in the kitchen.” There were conference calls with the Department of Public Health and daily contact with Nurse Practitioner Savannah.

Looking back, Lee says, “Our family struggled, each of us emotional and scared in our own ways. Johnny and my kids were now all assumed positive. They have had mild symptoms but we are moving forward and back to normal with our sneezing. I turned the corner, I’m one of the counted, and I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“We have no idea who brought it home but it doesn’t matter. There is NO blame. We’d all been together for two weeks, we had varying degrees of allergies, and I just happened to get the worst of it in our house. I continue to take preventative medicines and inhalers for asthma and allergies because there’s no question they got me through. That and the love of my family.”

On April 23, a sunny Spring day here in Maine, Lee drove from her Massachusetts home to have an al fresco picnic with her mom in Kennebunkport. She and Sandy sat six feet apart on chairs in the driveway enjoying lobster rolls. Recovery!