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  2020-10-16

  The scariest day as a Mom

  It was February 22nd, 2020 in what seemed like a very normal day for my family. We were on a club softball trip with my oldest daughter in bright and sunny Palm Springs California. We drove up to Palm Springs in the morning and watched my daughter play her regular three games. Nothing unusual for us, she’s been playing travel club for two years. After a quick shower and out the door to join the rest of her team for dinner, I turn around in the care and see my very active two year old son completely lethargic with very little response to us. I immediately began to tell my husband that we needed to find an urgent care because I knew looking at my son that he was not getting enough oxygen. Not being from California, I started to Google “urgent cares near me” I found one not too far away but I was told they did not take walk-ins and referred me to another urgent care across the town. Furious, my husband drives like a madman to the next urgent care. The nurse immediately took us to a room where she said to me that he needed to have a breathing treatment on the spot and his fever was 103 so they would be giving him fever-relief medicine. After about thirty minutes-a albuterol treatment and two different fever-relievers, we were released with the understanding that he had had a respiratory something (they couldn’t tell us what exactly it was), we were sent to get prescription. Well as unluck would have us, all of the near pharmacies were closed. We finally ended up at a Walmart, who was also about to close, where I finally lost it as mom, crying and begging the poor pharmacist to please fill my son’s prescription. Thank goodness she agreed, probably because of this sobbing mess that I was. Either that was enough. My husband made the executive decision to drive back home to Phoenix that night. Twelve hours from the time we first left AZ to we were on our way home. That Monday, we took my son to his primary care doctor who also couldn’t give us much of a diagnosis other than he was suffering from a very unusual respiratory virus. He was never tested for COVID-19, but my poor son was on breathing treatments for a week straight and his 103 fever finally broke….5 days later. At the follow up, in the beginning of March, we were told that my son probably had COVID-19, although testing was not really happening at this time. My son made a full recovery by the time our whole State and Nation shut down. But the experience I had with this virus was terrible and that day that I had with my son was the scariest moment I have ever felt as a mom. I am sharing this story because one, I want people to realize that this virus can affect children and that it has also been around for longer than people may have realized.
• 2020-05-13

  Life during quarantine in the Coachella Valley

  Our city is known as the City of Festivals; we host several festivals throughout the year. Two of the largest festivals, Coachella and Stagecoach, have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means a great deal of money and jobs have been lost. Here in the Coachella Valley, we are considered a tourist region, so when tourists can't come or events are cancelled, it is devastating. I was supposed to work at both festivals to help subsidize income for my family. Now, that has been made unavailable. And I am left looking for other ways to bring necessary funds into my household. Not having the festivals and several other events at our many Casinos has been really disparaging. We also have hundreds of Golf courses and resorts. This has put a lot of our people out of work. This also brings a damper to all of the other resources that help make these festivals and events complete. All of the maintenance, food vendors, and other vendors have also lost out of money. I actually work at a Boys and Girls Club and we have been shut down since March 16th. Although, I am still getting paid, it has not been as much as it normally would and that has hurt our family. We have four clubhouses here in the Coachella Valley with thousands of students; having to see these kids not being able to get together and play and have a place to escape for a while has been difficult. We have implemented virtual clubhouse programs to help keep the community connected. Although, that has been made difficult because several of our more eastern cities are more rural. These cities do not have great internet service. Therefore, several students cannot access activities and/or even participate in distance-learning. It is really sad to see how some of our students have not been able to get the help they need.