Mom knows COVID-19 in kids is serious; it put her son in hospital
Rachel Gilbert didn’t know how she’d get her oldest child in the car in January after a doctor friend urged her to rush him to the emergency room because his symptoms sounded like those of a rare condition associated with COVID-19 in children.
Like many kids his age, then 12-year-old Avi was growing like a weed. He had long ago shot up past his 5’-4” mother on the way to the 5 feet, 10 inches he is today at age 13.
More than that, after six days barely eating or drinking while his body fought with itself, the then-seventh grader from Washington Township, near Dayton, was weak and delirious.
“It was disturbing,” Rachel recalled. “I was scared.” Rachel managed to get Avi into the car that day in January and luckily spotted a wheelchair when she arrived at Dayton Children’s Hospital.
“They admitted him directly to the ICU,” Rachel said. “He had to have two IVS.”
After testing and evaluation, it was confirmed that Avi had multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which commonly appears several weeks after an initial coronavirus infection in those inflicted by it.
COVID antibodies were found in his system, indicating that Avi had a COVID-19 infection.
The CDC has identified 4,661 cases of MIS-C in this nation. There have been 41 deaths from the condition.
Months later, Rachel says she remains shocked at the backlash against vaccines and mask mandates by some parents, lawmakers and school officials around the state.
“I think people are using their kid’s health to proliferate their own political agendas,” she said. “Masks should be mandatory in schools.”
Anyone paying attention to science and hospital stats knows that she is right.
Kids are catching COVID-19 at an alarming rate. They’ve made up more than 1 in 4 new cases reported in recent weeks.
Officials at children’s hospitals around the state sounded the alarm about the “tsunami of kids” they are now seeing. They stressed the need for vaccines and mandatory masking in K-12 schools.
As it stands now, there is no statewide mask mandate, so districts have created their own policies.
A little more than half of students in K-12 public schools attend a school with a mask requirement, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
Researchers have not yet pinpointed the exact cause of MIS-C, but they believe it is an excessive immune response to COVID-19.
Rachel says the risks are real and warnings should be heeded.
“Kids are not immune (to COVID-19),” Rachel said.
“We never knew he had it.”
The stay-at-home mom and independent distributor for Senegence, a skincare company, and her husband, Heath, an optometrist, were sickened with coronavirus in December, weeks before Avi’s diagnosis.
None of the Gilberts’ four kids showed signs of COVID, but the two middle children were attending school in person and therefore were tested after their parents became ill.
The 6-year-old had the virus. Avi and his then-2year-old sister were not tested at that point because they were not attending in-person school.
Now Rachel suspects the whole family had the virus. Like many, she is confused about why it affects people so differently.
“He (Avi) has no underlying issues,” she said. Rapid tests administered by his pediatrician before the trip to the ER were not positive for COVID.
“I never heard about it (MIS-C),” Rachel said. “Obviously, our pediatrician hadn’t either.”
After diagnosis, Avi spent seven days in the hospital, about half of that time in the intensive care unit.
“He was feeling so terrible,” Rachel recalled. “It was really sad to see him in the hospital bed.”
The boy needed help learning to walk without falling and had to follow up with a cardiologist and another specialist for three months.
Rachel said she hopes she can help save others from the stress and fear her family experienced.
Parents can help protect their children. Avi was vaccinated when it was approved for his age group.
“If they are 12 or up, get them vaccinated. You’ve got their other vaccines,” Rachel said, noting that some parents have a bigger problem with masks than kids ever would.
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch’s opinion and community engagement editor.
@1Ameliarobinson