It started like any other day. I woke up, ate breakfast, and then went about my day feeling completely fine. Later that evening, I mentioned to my mom that I wasn’t feeling too well and decided to go to bed early, hoping that all I needed was a good night’s rest. Little did I know that the next day I would be at Children’s Hospital being admitted as a potential COVID-19 patient. 

I woke up at around 12 am to the feeling of chills and nausea coursing through my body. I laid in bed for about half-an-hour before I got the strength to get up and get my mom. She took my temperature right away. I had a fever of 103.5. She then proceeded to call my doctor, but they couldn’t do anything until the morning. The rest of the night I was tossing and turning only able to get about four hours of sleep. The next morning my mom told me that she was able to get in touch with a Pulmonary doctor who worked out of Boston Children’s Hospital. After we met briefly via Webcam, he sent me to Boston Children’s emergency room. 

Once at the ER, I was tested for strep and COVID-19. Since I have asthma, I’m considered compromised, making me more likely to have coronavirus. My symptoms all pointed to coronavirus too, which made my care team nervous. Every time a nurse or doctor entered my room, they would enter completely gowned and covered, some wearing two face masks and a plastic protective shield. Sitting in that bed, I got to see what working on the frontline really looked like. Since I still had a fever and respiratory difficulties, they admitted me to the Pulmonary ward of the hospital. Since my brother is only eight, my mom had to say goodbye to me from the ER. I had never seen such fear in her eyes before. My brother, on the other hand, didn’t really know what was going on. 

Once I was moved to the Pulmonary ward, I went straight to bed for it was about nine at night. During the night, I woke up about three or four times to a nurse taking my temperature and giving me Ibuprofen to bring down my fever. At this point, both of my tests had come back negative meaning no strep and no COVID-19. This was wonderful, and very much relieving news to hear. The next morning, when my mom came to pick me up, the doctors told us that I must have caught a bad case of the flu. They sent me home with instructions to drink plenty of fluids and to rest as much as possible.

This experience is something that I hope never happens to me, again. I am so grateful to have had the COVID-19 test come back negative. Something that I took away from my time at Boston Children’s is that Tamiflu will make you sick, but on another note, I found a new appreciation for the frontline healthcare workers across the globe. Being exposed to only a small part of the frontline workers, hit me with reality. Of course, I had seen pictures, videos, and articles about the frontline workers but seeing it in real life really opened my eyes and shocked me.