Long story short, I ended up getting COVID-19.

On Dec. 29, my mom, sisters, and I waited in a line, with four cars in front of us, to get a rapid test at the Pasco County School District offices. It was a hot day (of course) and we weren’t feeling great. My throat was sore and hurt every time I spoke. My head pounded. My whole body wanted to crawl back into bed and try to sleep it off. After waiting 20 minutes or so, we took our tests. Honestly, the test wasn’t that bad, it was just uncomfortable, but it didn’t hurt. We decided to get tested because my dad took a at home rapid test, and to our dismay he tested positive. When we got our results, at 3:30 p.m. one of my sisters tested positive, the other tested negative, my mom was negative, and I was too.

I started to get hot while laying in my bed later that night, and so I decided to take my temperature. Turns out, I was at 101.6. I was running a fever and feeling worse than I had earlier that day. We decided it was best if we isolated from one another, which proved to be difficult for my family of 5. We stayed to ourselves, just in case. At that point, I didn’t want to believe it, but I felt like I had COVID.

When New Year’s Eve rolled around, we stayed apart for most of the day. Honestly though we figured our house at that point was completely COVID infected, so we did watch some of the ABC New York Ball Drop, together as a family.

Before we knew it, it was Monday, Jan. 3, and we were supposed to go to school the next day. To be safe we went back to the Pasco County School District offices to get another rapid test done. So all five of us jumped into my Dad’s truck and were on our way to get rapid tested, again. Unfortunately, the line was longer, because I assume everyone was trying to do their part and make sure they weren’t going back to school sick. After waiting for about two and a half hours, it was our turn to get our tests done. We rolled down the windows and a nurse asked for our names, grabbed our tests, and proceeded to swab our noses. This time around the nurse went further up my nose, for what felt like too long. The test was definitely more unforgettable the second time around, but I felt like the results would be 100% true, because she took such a good sample. Three hours later we got our results back and my dad, mom, one of my sisters, and I were all positive. But surprising, my sister who had tested negative roughly a week earlier was still negative.

The next day our mom called the school and got all three of us, excused from school for the next week. We would be back the following Monday and we knew we would be missing a lot of teaching. At this point, we didn’t have terrible symptoms that prevented us from working, so we all emailed our teachers to see what we could be doing that week to keep up with everyone else. So, every day we just worked on school work for a couple hours and then did whatever we wanted.

When we came back to school on Monday, Jan. 10. It was kind of strange knowing everyone else had been there for a full week. I kept up with my work, but still felt a little lost in all my classes. But, writing this a week later I feel like I am up-to-date on everything in my classes and feel completely fine. Looking back, it was like I had a third week of winter break.

If you have any symptoms, all Pasco students and staff can get tested for free at the Pasco County Schools District Office Complex in Land O’ Lakes. Testing is done through a drive-thru with antigen nasal swabs, seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.