When Kati Durkee got a sore throat, she went to the pharmacy.
A week later, she found out that it wasn't a cold. Or allergies. And that food poisoning that settled in, that wasn't food poisoning either.
A week later still, Durkee's son (Durkee has a son in 11th grade and a daughter in 10th, but did not want their names in this story) got what she had -- COVID-19.
"We were not the two-week people," she says.
There were bouts of dizziness, migraines, tachycardia, and extreme fatigue.
"It was like a really bad flu, but it would let up for a day or two. For a couple of days, you’d think, ‘I’m on
the way up, I’ve beaten this,’ and then [snap] right back down again. It took a full five months before I could take a deep breath without all around my rib cage hurting."
Five months. Much of it out of work, some of it out of school. All with a household to run, and all with a family whose children already had physical and mental health conditions.
But Kati Durkee is not your average survivor. She's almost downright chipper. In the audio story below, Durkee explains her outlook on adversity and her hope for more compassion as the entire world deals with a pandemic that's leaving everyone on the high side of anxiety.