SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. (SPECTRUM NEWS) - The immunocompromised can be highly vulnerable to coronavirus, leading those who live with them to take extra precautions. A Wisconsin woman who tested positive managed to avoid spreading it to her live-in boyfriend with cancer.
Jessica Laughlin, 24, is a grad student at UW-Milwaukee. She lives with her boyfriend, a nursing student there. “We’ve been together for about a year and a half now,” Laughlin said. “He got diagnosed with cancer in May, a week before I graduated with my undergrad degree in psychology.”
Before the Safer At Home order, she wasn’t too worried about coronavirus. “I wasn’t watching the news because I thought it was too negative, I didn’t wanna hear about it,” Laughlin said. There were only a couple dozen cases in Wisconsin at the time.
But because her significant other is immunocompromised, at the beginning of March she started taking steps to prevent herself from catching coronavirus. “I eliminated going into work and everything,” Laughlin said. In classes she was wiping down her desk, she was wiping her hands often, and using lots of hand sanitizer. “I thought I was doing everything right.”
Then around March 13, she started to feel a little cough. At first, it felt like her average cold. She started making changes at home to avoid giving it to her boyfriend. Even a cold could hurt his health.
Over the next few days of her “cold” though, Laughlin lost her senses of taste and smell. She reached out to her doctor, who suggested a COVID-19 test, expecting to rule it out. She got her test results back the next day. She was positive.
“When I found out I tested positive for COVID it was literally one of the worst moments of my life,” Laughlin said. “I didn’t know who I infected, I didn’t know whose lives I put at risk.”
Immediately Laughlin moved to her mom’s and stepdad’s home in Sun Prairie to isolate. She and her boyfriend decided it was the best thing for his health. “I was just laying there in bed the first couple days and I was like, gosh, I feel like I can’t get better because I’m so concerned,” she said. “Whose lives did I put at risk during a time of uncertainty?”
Over the course of the virus’ progression, she felt most of the telltale symptoms. “I started off with the dry cough … and then it led into the no taste and smell. And then the day after I found out I tested positive I got a fever of 99.7, it never went over that, it always stayed in the 99s. But I had that fever for four days,” Laughlin said. “And then I started to get chest pain, and then I had extreme GI issues as well, from respiratory symptoms that causes GI issues, my physician said. The chest pain felt like someone was kind of compressing on my chest.”
Laughlin is feeling a lot better now, but she’s going weeks without seeing her boyfriend. “I like caring for him, I like to make sure he feels comfortable and knowing he has someone there to kind of support him, like physically there,” she said. “Not being there has been really hard … I really miss him.”
While she was in Sun Prairie, her boyfriend was tested for COVID-19 twice. Both times, he tested negative. “That was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders when I found that out,” Laughlin said. “I couldn’t imagine being here, sick in bed, and my boyfriend who has cancer has COVID.”
They were in the house together for a few days while she had symptoms. It feels miraculous that he didn’t catch the virus.
Laughlin believes he stayed negative because of changes she made at home once she first felt that cough. “I Cloroxed everything like three times a day,” she said. “Don’t hug him, six feet, sleep in separate beds.”
She said she was so cautious, and she still ended up getting COVID-19. “People need to be very serious about this so they don’t affect those who they love.”
If someone you love is immunocompromised, you may want to take extra steps to keep them healthy. The CDC also has guidance on how to care for a loved one with coronavirus at home, while preventing it from spreading.
It’s been two weeks since Laughlin’s diagnosis. The health department has cleared her to go back into society, but she’s staying inside, just in case. Once she was free of extreme symptoms for 72 hours, her mom could start her quarantine. Because her mom was caring for her, the health department recommended she quarantine for two weeks as well.
Laughlin plans to go home and reunite with her boyfriend once her mom’s quarantine is up, which is Thursday, April 10.
----------
Christian Faith Fellowship Church Donates 500 Food Boxes to Community
Drive through local food pickup connects small farms with customers
Wisconsin Man Looks to Improve Mental Health with Online Program
Oshkosh Businesses Step Up to Help Feed Families in Need
Madison's Exact Sciences working around the clock testing state COVID-19 kits