‘The fever was just shocking... I was completely confused’

A TRALEE man has spoken of his family’s ordeal after contracting the Coronavirus over a fortnight ago, which left both him and his wife with a fever, persistent hacking cough and – in his wife’s case – zero energy.

But the couple, who do not wish to identify themselves at this point, are now thankfully through the worst of their illness and looking forward to getting their lives back to some bit of normality.

Meanwhile, they described as a hero the only other person they shared the house with throughout their self-isolation and who stepped up to the mark with great courage – their five-yearold son.

“My wife started showing symptoms on the Sunday before St Patrick’s Day and was tested within three to four hours. The result came back positive on Wednesday, March 18,” the Tralee dad told The Kerryman.

“There seems to be a lot of false information out there in general about so much, but in terms of the contact tracing that was required, the HSE were only interested in people she had been in contact with since she started showing symptoms.

“But we locked down immediately once she started getting symptoms, so the only people she had been in contact with after she took ill were me and our son,” he said.

The Tralee man said he then became symptomatic on the Wednesday after St Patrick’s Day – the same day his wife got news of her positive COVID-19 result.

As with his wife, his first symptom was a fever. “I got onto the doctor straight away and was referred for a test, which was later cancelled. I was actually only tested on Saturday and haven’t got the result yet, but I know I have had it.

“I didn’t have it half as bad as she did. She was completely bed-ridden for days with it. I wouldn’t say I was bed-ridden as such with it but, for me, the worst of it was the fever.

“The fever was shocking. I felt as if I had lost my mind one night as I even said to my wife that I was so confused. I think my temperature was about 39 degrees at that point. The fever lasted for about three days, on and off.

“That subsides and then the cough kicks in, that’s how we experienced it. But the cough was a lot worse for my wife than it was for me, and I’m a smoker and she’s not.”

He said the cough was unlike any cough he had experienced previously: “My cough was different than I’d ever felt before. It was a violent cough, you would be left gasping by it.”

Paracetamol was a massive help, he said. “I have never had as much faith in paracetamol as I do now. I was taking two tablets every four hours and it really kept the temperature under control.”

Gradually, the couple got better and, by Monday, were largely out of the woods.

“This Wednesday we will be 14 days since I developed symptoms. Once the 14 days are up, we have to go another five days with no temperature and no cough before we are considered free of the virus. I’m hoping to get back to work then as I work in an essential service. I’m assuming you can’t contract it a second time, so I could be quite valuable to the community,” he said.

He believes his wife contracted the virus in a social setting in Tralee, subsequently infecting him too. One of their greatest worries of all proved unfounded, however.

“We didn’t panic or anything when we realised she was sick with it, but our main concern was for our little boy and for others we had been in contact with in the days before that Sunday.

“But we can at least say we infected no one. Our boy hasn’t showed any signs of illness, thank God.

“And no-one my wife was in contact with in the week before she took ill has become sick. That includes people who had been in the house with us.”

There was one person in particular they could not have convalesced without – their brave five-year-old.

“He was incredible. Though he won’t be six until May, he showed the maturity of a 12-yearold through it all. We thought he would be very worried first when we suspected my wife was sick with it.

“But the virus had been explained to him in school ,and he just said ‘It’s okay, I know mom and dad, it’s just the flu’.

“He then stepped up to the plate in a way we could never have foreseen. We had to self isolate as best we could. My wife took to the bedroom upstairs and I stayed in the sitting room, sleeping on a pull-out bed.

“He was like the parent, going between the pair of us. Keeping great hygiene. Never once whinging, going out in the garden by himself to exercise, getting dressed for bed all by himself – even making breakfast for his mother and taking it up to her!

He is our little hero. The only time I saw him cry was when he was talking to his granddad on a video call and became very emotional when he couldn’t hug him.

“There was a very nice touch by the HSE, too. In a phone conversation when they were checking up on us I told them about how great he was, and the HSE lady asked to speak to him directly. When he got on the phone she said ‘I want to thank you for all you have done for your parents and the community’. He was delighted.”

The Tralee dad is also already helping others through it – having spoken by phone to a number of people deeply worried about the virus: “I could tell with a couple I had really calmed their fears and knew, getting off the phone from them, they would sleep that night. That was really satisfying knowing I had helped them.