Stacia Hehenberger is a Florida mom who has recently been through a lot with her family. She recently wrote a public post on Facebook to detail her family's experience with the coronavirus, saying that everyone in her family came down with the disease in March. While most of the family has recovered, Stacia's 8-year-old son is still coping with the impact of the virus 108 days later.
Stacia writes:
"In March, our entire family became sick with COVID-like symptoms. Our oldest son started with fever, sore throat, nausea, headache and mild cough. Within 48 hours, all 5 of us were sick.
"Our 8 year old was last to start with symptoms and his case was the most mild of all of ours. If it hadn't been for the entire family being sick and the threat of COVID, I wouldn't have even called the pediatrician.
"We waited until day 7 to have him tested. He was the only one of us still sick. He tested negative for both flu and COVID. We figured it was just a case of bad luck and a nasty virus and waited for it to pass."
"On day 14, I urged our 8-year-old to come for a walk with me. He'd been in bed for two weeks and I thought he'd feel better if he got up and started moving a little. We got 3 blocks into our walk and my soccer playing, American ninja loving, constantly moving boy asked to go home because he was tired. He wasn't even sure if he could make it the 3 blocks back to the house. He had to sit on the curb. When we did get home, I called the pediatrician again."
"Today is July 10th and it marks day 108 for our boy.
"He runs a fever every day. We have blackout curtains and extra blankets hung on his windows because sometimes his head hurts so bad that any splinter of light feels like a knife. He has lost 10 pounds and now takes medication to keep his appetite up and drinks Orgain for calories. He has muscle pain and aches. He feels like he will pass out if we try a bike ride or walk on a trail near our house. He climbs in the pool with his brothers for a few minutes but then gets chills and crawls back under the blankets in his room until he's warm again. He gets nauseous being in the car for any duration."
"He's exhausted.
"All of the time. But he has trouble sleeping because he feels so awful.
"He's 8 and doesn't have enough energy to play outside, ride his bike, read a book or stand up for too long."
"He's been through an onslaught of tests, lab work and procedures to rule out pretty much anything that could possibly cause these symptoms for this long. Every single test has come back normal.
"His chest xray gave the only clue- peribronchial thickening indicative of COVID.
"He barely had a cough."
"I write this because I'm sick of hearing people complain about wearing a mask or rattle off a talking point about children not being [affected] by COVID.
"It's true that children are not dying at a high rate. What's not true is that children have not died.
"And what is also categorically false is that children are not affected.
"I'm seeing it with my own eyes."
"We don't know if our son's illness will last another week or if this is now a chronic condition. No one can tell us. No one has the answers.
"The truth is, we don't know what this disease does yet. We have only just begun to understand how COVID-19 acts in the early phases. We are clueless as to what this virus does to our bodies, and our children's bodies in the long run."
"So, please.
Stay home if you're able.
Don't go to Disney when it opens.
Don't throw birthday parties and invite all the friends.
Don't follow the advice of politicians.
Wear a freaking mask.
"These are not hard things."
"You can do it. I believe in you.
"There's an 8-year-old in Florida that has been in bed for 108 days and he believes in you too."
After her post began to gain a lot of attention, Stacia clarified a few of the details.
"For those asking what they can do, all we ask is that you follow CDC recommendations and take precautions to slow community spread. For those inquiring about other diagnoses, we have been through complete workups for 100s of other potential causes and are very confident in our team of doctors and health care providers."
"For those confused about a negative COVID test result but evidence of the virus on radiological findings, I'd encourage you to do some digging on your own. False negatives are not all that uncommon and the pediatric population has not been widely tested in the US. He was tested once in March, 7 days after his fever began and when the test was negative, COVID was tabled and the specialists moved on to ruling out other causes- as was appropriate."
"Once all of those potential causes were ruled out through EXTENSIVE testing (cancer, mono, Bartonella, fever syndromes, autoimmune disorders, other infections, PANS, Lyme, etc), we've come back to the original thought and luckily more and more data is coming out regarding this type of pediatric inflammatory response post-COVID."
