Sophia Batista, a junior at Leesville, recently finished her 14-day quarantine after being diagnosed with COVID-19 early September.
Batista was one of the many infected by the coronavirus. She was exposed when her sister came home from a gathering with a couple of her friends. Unfortunately, one of her sister’s friends decided to not stay home and quarantine when they started to have symptoms. Without knowing she had been exposed, her sister continued her daily routine around her family.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, the most common symptoms include: fever or chills, cough, nasal congestion, new loss of taste and smell, sore throat, tiredness, headaches, and many more.
Batista’s symptoms included a headache for four days consecutively and nasal congestion. Even though she did not record a fever, the most consistent symptom she had was tiredness.
“Physically I was just tired a lot,” she said.
The Waiting Game
Once Batista found out she tested positive for COVID, she started her two week self isolation. She stayed in her room most of the time painting and getting as much sleep as she could. In order to go downstairs for food or other necessities, she would have to wear a mask around her family.
Staying by yourself with not much to do can take a toll on people, especially for Batista since she’s a junior in high school. During her quarantine experience, Batista knew she couldn’t go down and talk to her family or walk around her house making TikToks like she used to. She had to stay in her room alone for fourteen days.
“It was hard mentally because I was just alone,” Batista said.
Each day would pass by, but it was still a little bit of a struggle for Batista. Although she was in her own house, she still had to stay in her room so she wouldn’t infect anyone else living with her most importantly her grandma.
She stated that the scariest thing about having this virus was constantly worrying about infecting her grandma.
“I was scared I was going to give it to her,” she said. “I didn’t want to infect her and then she got it which would be a lot worse for her.”
Now, Batista has been feeling much better! She has no lingering symptoms and has been getting back to her normal, outgoing self. She hopes that others will be more cautious if they know about their symptoms to help minimize the spread of COVID.
Hi! My name is Kyla, and I am a senior editor for The Mycenaean. I am the secretary for Senior Class Council and also the editor-in-chief for Leesville’s literary magazine