I was driving Leila to school early Thursday morning and she was very quiet. I patted her knee at the stop street and said, “Are you okay?”

“No!” she replied, “my throat hurts and I’ve got a cough.”

“Do you want to play hookie?” I asked, eyeing out the bike that was revving impatiently behind us.

Her eyes lit up, “What’s that?”

“You can stay home, sick.” She nodded gratefully and I took a left, instead of a right.

We went home and she climbed back into bed, snuggled under the covers and zoned out. The poor kid had had an incredibly rough few weeks, what with her father passing away, relocating to Gauteng and starting a new school. I figured she was absolutely entitled to have a day off. She probably had allergies or something, the leaves were falling at an alarming rate.

The Easter weekend was coming up and it would give her enough time to relax.

Turned out our bathroom cabinet was rather rudimentary, so we zooted off to the chemist for the second time in two days and got all sorts of flu and allergy stuff. We’d been for Rollo the day before – he also had a snotty nose and was congested.

Leila diligently squirted Andolex down her throat and sucked the vitamin C’s I pressed into her hand, but put us straight at supper that night, saying she usually took AC200 and Vicks cough syrup whenever she was sick. So, the next day, we got that too, hoping she would not need it too much in the future.

By the third day, Leila was feeling much brighter and got out of bed.

I, however, was not feeling so fine. My legs were aching and the backs of my eyes were gritting and sore. But it was Saturday, aka shopping day, and the cupboards were bare.

Honestly, neither Chris nor I gave COVID a thought.

After shopping, I flopped on the bed and was joined by Chris,, who also wasn’t feeling so hot. We decided to stay there until it was time to haul our weary bones out again to make pizza for supper. Said pizza was delicious, nice and salty, as anchovies should be.  We were hoping desperately that we’d feel better the next day because it was Easter Sunday and we had family coming for lunch.

But it was not to be.

Sunday dawned, cold and rainy, and rivers of mucus ran from my nose. If anything, I felt worse than the day before. Regretfully, we canceled our lunch. Everything ached. Chris and I were pathetic lumps of flesh alternatively either huddled under the blankets, shivering, or sweating like pigs.

The dogs had a field day, leaping on and off our bed, where we stayed all day, only crawling out to raid the leftover pizza or get coffee. To my disgust, the delicious pizza had gone off overnight. Then I realized with a shock, that there was nothing wrong with the pizza.

It was me.

On Monday, I felt human enough to have a shower and get dressed. Went for a walk with Em and Rollo, thoroughly enjoying the fresh air. Rollo was still miserable, not his usual smiley self at all, but we put it down to teething.

Chris stayed in bed, not feeling great.

We’d finally ballsed up and taken stock of our symptoms. Chris decided a COVID test was needed. He was supposed to go to work on Tuesday, after being on leave for three weeks. But going back coughing and snorting didn’t seem like a smart thing to do.

On Tuesday morning early, I did the school run and staggered into the Spar afterward to see what medical supplies they had. Chris’s throat was on fire. The best I could do was cough drops. We’d have to visit Clicks yet again after getting tested.

I elected not to have a swab stuck up my nose and let Chris do the honours. On the way home, we popped into Clicks to get more Andolex and I also asked the pharmacist about stuff for COVID. He hauled a bottle of Viral C Plex off the shelf and handed it over. We stocked up on panado, disprin, med lemon and anything else we could think of.

The results came back on Wednesday morning. Chris had tested positive for COVID. After escaping the dreaded lurgy for more than two years, it had finally hit our household.