Waking up one morning, I felt light headed and weak. My dry throat was begging for water. But, I didn’t think much of it.

A few days passed, and it started to get worse and worse. My throat was parched, my nose was runny, my body was aching, and I got pains that I can’t even explain. That’s when I started to get worried. Even with a fever, this feeling wasn’t how I normally felt when I was sick before. 

Before I got sick, we had just come back from staying at a hotel near the beach for my mom’s birthday. My family had invited a few close family friends, we didn’t even think of social distancing, none of us seemed sick so we all thought it was okay.

 I thought to myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

With a sinking feeling, I remembered the family celebration for my mom at the beach the week before. Stir crazy from COVID isolation, eight family members had gathered at the beach. We hugged, laughed and ate cake together.  I thought I might have contracted the Coronavirus. I went to my mom with my concerns. she kept telling me it was just a fever and I was overreacting. 

“Oh honey, it’s just a fever you’re overreacting.” 

The rest of my family seemed perfectly fine. 

I convinced my family to get tested, but my mom kept telling us that our family was never going to  get it because we are healthy eaters and have good immune systems. At the time, they seemed like valid reasons. 

Two days after I got tested for COVID, my results came in: positive. I was shocked. It felt surreal.

We got in contact with our family friends that we stayed with at the beach. It turned out my older sister, my brother in law and my step sister all got COVID. 

The Florida Department of Education pushed for schools state-wide to move open schools to receive students for e-learning on campus. That means by October 15th, young teens can once again be on campus. Many are in disagreement with said actions, however there are many several students planning to attend. 

On Sept. 15, the Sun Sentinel reported that 23% of new cases in Broward county could be attributed to young adults and teens. At the time of publishing, acording to the independanly run COVID Monitor, there were  more than 42,000 reported cases of COVID-19  in K-12 schools. And that was just as Miami-Dade and Broward counties, the largest school districts in Florida, opened their doors to in-person classes. 

“We have to make young teens realize that this isn’t a hoax, social distancing and wearing a mask is important throughout this pandemic. We are all in this together,” said Belia Jackson, a pediatrician at Memorial Hospital.

I was part of the problem and that hurt me the most. I was ignorant enough to think I was “immune” to corona. I learned the hard way that I was not.

I personally experienced most symptoms, loss of taste and smell, fever, body aches, headaches, and runny nose.  However, asymptomatic people don’t experience any symptoms, so they are unaware that they might have the virus. Even though they don’t show any illness, it can still spread to others through contact. This can be dangerous as it puts them at risk. 

Dr. Jackon thinks that teens aren’t ready to go back to school, and I couldn’t agree with her more. 

It took me three weeks to recover from COVID. Many were painful days, others were just Irritating. I don’t recommend getting this virus. You usually don’t believe it until you experience it, but trust me it’s not worth the risk.