Rochelle Randall

Is this real life

Where do I begin? Well it was mid-November 2020 and my niece called my sister, her mother, and made a statement I will never forget. “If you guys go to Texas get COVID and nana dies from it, I will never speak to you again.” I invited my mother and my sister to spend Thanksgiving with us as we spent a week in Texas visiting my father in law. They said yes. I never believed they would come until the actual day we were packing up my Subaru Forrester to take the almost 24 hour road trip. My mom at the time was 74 in decent health as a newly diagnosed diabetic. We placated my niece by telling her that we will have sanitizer, wash our hands, social distance, and wear masks everywhere we go, if we go anywhere. We were looking forward to a nice family trip knowing that COVID numbers were pretty high in Texas. We were traveling from Florida for eight days, and considered it pretty much the same seriousness from state to the other. I am a self proclaimed hypochondriac so the thought of COVID scared the you know what out of me. Thus the many precautions. Everywhere we traveled we had a mask and were what we thought was very safe. We visited my nephews adopted family, went to the Mercado, Buc-we’d, and the San Antonio Zoo. We were never careless, not once. That was pretty much it, every place was one of the greatest times we spent as a family and my sister and mother were having a blast. Thanksgiving we just bought the dinner and ate our quaint Airbnb. Thanksgiving day, my sister, my father in law, and myself were sitting on a couch watching a Movie just kind of constantly clearing our throat. Nothing more than that and nothing less. I also noticed my son sneezing a few times and because the weather was a little chilly I figured he was coming down with a cold. My mother and I decided to take a run to the local CVS to get the precautionary items to get a head of my sons symptoms. I even bought Zicam for myself “just to be safe.” That night was awful, I was waking up constantly going to the bathroom and just feeling horrific, no fever but chills. I knew something was wrong, and even told my husband well I have COVID. I woke up the next morning and asked my husband to tell my mother that I could barely get out of bed because I felt so awful. I will never forget how upset she was at me because she just wanted to have a girls day with me and my sister shopping and spending time together. She even told my sister, why does she always have to be sick?! I felt so guilty at that time I made myself get up and tried to salvage the day, but my mother was so mad she refused to continue on with the girls day. It truly was the only bad day we had on our trip. The day before we were headed home back to Florida. My sister had a slight headache but nobody really mentioned feeling bad after that. Until I arrived back home from the long road trip in the car. I felt like literal hell. I could barely move from my bed. I called my mom and she seemed fine as well as my sister. My husband thought he had some allergy issues and my so was fine. Around this time I started to google how long a cold usually lasts and found that I should be feeling better and not worse. My mother even came to spend the night with my aunt to visit even though we had just seen each other 24 hours beforehand. Then the next day after she left, my six year old son happened to be sleeping with me and was on my arm, and he felt like his body was on fire. Every red flag went off. I decided to error on the side of caution and get a COVID test for us both. The doctor that saw us said I believe you are just being paranoid and that you both have a virus and it is not COVID, but I will go ahead and do the tests. My mom told me she believes we both had a virus and she caught it too because she started to not feel well, and my sister felt pretty bad too. I will never forget the call I received a day later of the nurse telling me that we both tested positive. I immediately started to cry and called my mother, sister, and husband. I reached out to my friend who I knew was affected by COVID and got advice. My friend told me to start zinc (I was already on zicam still), mucinex, magnesium, vitamin d3. Vitamin C, mullein tea, pulse oximeter, back massages daily, and check temp regularly. I did all of this instantly and spread the word to my family to start this ASAP. I sent my mother everything she needed, and her and my aunt went to get tested. The called her back quickly as well she was positive. That Monday was the last time I saw my mother to where I could hug her and feel her next to me. She ended up in the hospital 2 weeks later and was put on a bipap machine. While all of this was going on I received a call from my father’s side of the family letting me know my estranged father was in icu in critical condition with endstage heart failure. My world was caving in around me. I prayed almost 24/7 for a miracle for them both. My husband, son, and I went on a Sunday to wave to her through her window and tell her we live her. My son kissed the window and she blew a kiss back to her grand baby. That was the last time I saw my mother as a responsive alive person. Then the next day, on December 21st, the last text I received from my mother... She had decided to go on a ventilator. Meanwhile, my sister, my husband, my aunt, my brother (who caught it visiting my mother masked up even) and son were all recovering from COVID. My mother’s reports were good for two days when she was brought out of sedation, she was responsive and answered all questions, there was so much hope in that. She spent The holidays by herself in ICU under sedation alone for the first time in her entire life. I was able to FaceTime my father and sing to him and pray with him, he could barely talk but I could make out him telling me he loves me his baby girl. It was a few days of roller coaster reports good and bad and good again. Me and my sister just sat staring at each other crying and praying and trying to give each other hope. Our best friend’s life was in peril and we could not do anything about it but plead for her life. On December 29th I got the call that my father had passed. It was gut wrenching, there were so many things I had missed out on life and did not have closure on. That is a hole other story I may tell one day, but just like that he was gone permanently from my life. For a little over two weeks my mom fought until she could not any longer. On January 17th, 2021 she lost her battle against COVID. It was by far the worst day of my life I have yet to experience. She had so much more life to live and experience. There is not one day that I don’t think about turning the hands of time and going back to before our trip and not inviting her or my sister with us, if only I could. She was invincible to me and my personal superhero. I wish the world could have known my mother and how amazing she was to me and my family. She was put matriarch. I was born of her flesh and it is like a piece of me was ripped away, and it was all my fault. I could have said no, but I didn’t. I have to live with that as long as I do live. None of my family blames me, but I will always blame myself. Who loses both parents like that weeks apart? Me, that is my tragic story to bare.