Combating COVID-19

Diana Rangel described the feeling as a rollercoaster of emotion.

Shock, fear, anger – all of it swirled as she heard the doctor on the other end of the line tell her what she suspected all along: she had contracted COVID-19.

“At first, it shocked me,” said Rangel, 33, a mother of three and wife of an active duty airman at Offutt Air Force Base.  “I never thought it would be me. You never put yourself in the group who gets it. And then I really got upset about it because I was around my family, I was around my mother-in-law, who is very ill and I got really emotional.”

Rangel and her family reside near Pacific Junction. She is the first Mills County resident with a confirmed case of COVID-19 to speak out publicly about combating the virus that’s now caused more than 90,000 deaths in the United States. After a difficult and stressful 10-day self-confinement, she’s feeling better, but she’s still not certain how she contracted the virus. She got the news from her doctor May 8, three days after becoming suddenly ill and getting tested.

“It hit me out of nowhere,” she said of the sudden onset of a terrible headache and fever, then chills and powerful body aches. “It felt almost like the flu at first, then it knocked me down to my bed and I was there the rest of the day. The body aches were way worse than when you get the flu. I’ve had the actual flu before, but these body aches were completely different.”

Waiting for the results while struggling with the effects of the virus was hard, she said. Telling her husband Virginio, who has been deployed to Qatar since January without a firm return date, was even more difficult. At first, her husband didn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“He was like ‘That’s crazy, are you sure?” she said. “So, he started getting worried, too, because he’s not here and worried who’s going to take care of me and be there with me. I was like, ‘I’ll be fine, just don’t worry about it.’ Then his nerves started kicking in because I was around his mom and she has health issues.”

Rangel’s mother-in-law has shown no signs or symptoms of the virus. But Rangel wasn’t the only one in her family to get sick. Her father, Aman Gonzalez, 56, and her son, Virginio Jr., 13, were both ill around the same time. Given their close contact with Rangel and their symptoms, they both were marked as presumptive cases. Doctors declined to test both at the time pending Rangel’s results and because of limited testing supplies. By the time the case was confirmed, her son was already on the mend.

“It was scary but it only lasted for 24 hours for him and he’s back up and doing his own thing,” she said. “That was surprising but doctors said that was pretty typical for what they see in teenagers. They get it for 24 (hours) and they’re up like nothing happened.”

Her father, 56, like her son, still has a cough, but is much improved after 10 days in self-isolation.
Shortness of breath and diarrhea are the only lingering effects for Rangel.

None of the three were hospitalized. The prescribed treatment consisted of rest, Tylenol and Motrin to keep the fever down and the body aches in check. Rangel was also advised to self-isolate in her home away from her other two children, age 4 and 11.

“We tried to stay away from them as much as we could, but it’s hard because they’re younger so it’s harder to keep them away,” she said. “Especially with a four-year-old, she kept coming in and wanting Mommy.”

Rangel’s two daughters, who have thus far been symptom-free, had to self-isolate for 14 days.

“They say it stays in your system for 10 days and since they’ve haven’t shown any symptoms, they have to wait 14 days to see if they develop any,” she said.

Rangel still hasn’t left the house since returning home following her test.

“I don’t want to go out or go anywhere,” she said. “I’m scared I could give it to someone else and I don’t want that guilt.”

Contact tracing still has yet to determine how she got the virus.

She’s racked her brain since that fateful phone call trying to come up with how she might have come in contact with the virus and she’s still not sure.

“I really have no idea how I got it,” she said. “I took all the precautions when I went to the grocery store and to get gas, I wore my mask and gloves. It’s been hard to figure out where I got it from.”

Rangel is a medical assistant with the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) but she’s had no physical contact with clients since mid-March. Since the pandemic began, she’s been working remotely and meeting with patients virtually.

“It blows my mind that I can’t figure out where I might have picked it up because literally since we went into quarantine and I started working from home, we haven’t gone out much at all.”

The Rangels moved to Pacific Junction about a year and a half ago - not long before they were forced out by last spring’s devastating flooding. So, dealing with crisis isn’t new, although it hasn’t been easy.

A few weeks ago, Rangel posted on Facebook, requesting help to get school meals delivered for her three children. The outpouring of support she received from the community overwhelmed her.

“It’s been an amazing feeling,” she said. “The only help I needed was someone to pick up the lunches and bring them to my home. When I got the response that someone was starting a meal train for me, it was mind-blowing. This is a community that really does care about their people. I’ve never had an experience like that before.”

The Opinion-Tribune

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