PHOTOGRAPHED BY MORGANA WINGARD

After Paul brought it home, COVID-19 spread like wildfire to everyone in their house. Though they had some similar symptoms, they all experienced it differently and for varying periods of time over the next month. 

Paul: I work in the main residential building that is part of a hospital in Manhattan. It looks like it’s the hospital, but it’s the apartments that the doctors and nurses live in. I’m the concierge there at the front and have relationships with most of the people since I’ve been there for a long time. I talked to people and I knew that people inside the apartments were sick. The problem was there was no signage on my door that said it was a residential building. So people are constantly coming in thinking it’s the hospital and we have to redirect them. So, there were people coming in who would walk right up to my desk. There were people that lived in the building whose spouse had it and they were walking their dogs and they would stop and talk to me. I could have gotten it from two dozen people. I brought it home and then it took off. We all thought that if I got this thing, I could be in trouble as in the past I have had multiple bouts with pneumonia where I was intubated. I was concerned and didn’t want to die.

Tina: Once Paul got sick, we kind of quarantined him in the back den. But, we kind of didn't quarantine him. 

I came down with symptoms on Saturday, the 28th. And on Sunday my doctor sent me to the ER because I was having weird chest pain. They gave me a chest x-ray and a CD test. On Monday the 30th, I got results that I was COVID-19 positive.

The headaches were unbearable. I had them all through the night. It felt like somebody was jabbing a pen in my orbital bone right above my eye. But, I’ve been prone to bad headaches since I was young. So, it almost felt like the virus was kind of attacking what was normal.

I was laid out tired, simply exhausted with no energy.  I often work from home and I remember those first few days of calling in sick.  Usually, when I’m out sick I still hop on a conference call here or there and listen in.  Or I might jump on my laptop to approve expense reports.  This time, I remember opening my laptop and just looking at the screen thinking how fast can I get through this?  I’m never like that. With this illness, I didn't touch my laptop for two weeks. 

Tina: Paulie was only sick for 2-3 days. Sunday morning (March 29th) before I went to the ER, I was sitting at the table talking with my two redheads expressing how I was feeling. When we started talking about the body aches, headaches, and feeling feverish, my two redheads said that's exactly how they felt.  Paulie and Patrick had minor symptoms. It’s their belief that it’s the “ginger power” that kept them from getting sicker. 

Tina:  Patrick was only sick for 2-3 days. The only reason he knew he had shortness of breath was because on Wednesday the 15th he and his brother, Paulie, were outside in the backyard playing basketball. I remembered seeing them and telling my sister that day, “I mean Patrick is outside playing basketball, so they gotta be fine right? If they're not fine right now, they're getting fine.” But, Patrick said that day, when he was outside, he noticed that he was noticeably more winded than he had ever been. He is a tri-sport athlete in high school, and very athletic. But while playing, he noticed that he was laboring a bit more than he should have been. But that's the extent of it. He'd walk down the stairs and walk to the back and be a little out of breath, but not to the point where we ever were concerned that he needed to go to the hospital.

Patrick’s a senior in high school. So, he's in that class of 2020, that's losing everything: Senior events like the Prom, Graduation plans unknown, etc.  We also also just had his 18th birthday where we did a “sidewalk socia”l for his birthday which was nice. Believe it or not - the police came twice due to a neighbors complaint.  We did the right things though - everybody was separated. we weren’t sharing food -- nothing like that. We were washing down tables if guests sat down. To the outsider though, I guess if you looked at it from the side, it was a whole lot of people….hence the police visit. twice. The police didn’t do much though, they said, ‘Look, it's your property. You're doing what you want. You're not doing anything wrong. I'm just letting you know you’ve had a neighbor or two that called.’  

We had a few tables…..socially distanced.  No one was close to each other. Really. Never more than a dozen people. Nobody got sick from what we were doing.

Tina: Quinn was sick for 4-5 days. He was the last to show symptoms. Similar to me, he had fever and bad body aches.  Quinn, Mr. Strong, who played football in College - told us that his body ached like he had played tackle football with no padding.  All he wanted was for the body aches to go away. He couldn’t get comfortable.  Quinn, who was working doing local restaurant deliveries at the time, lost his job when the two restaurants he worked for had to close due to the Pandemic and had to go on unemployment.

Our house was down and out for a month with residual symptoms for another month.  We were blessed and some of the lucky ones, this virus is not to be taken lightly.  I’m grateful it’s in our rear view mirror, but is it for sure?  We don’t know.