Georgia mother contracts COVID-19 while caring for infected son
FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. - Across the US, families, and friends will gather for Labor Day weekend celebrations and cookouts to mark the unofficial end of summer.
Yet, health experts are warning Americans not to let down their guard, because the novel coronavirus can spread very easily when people gather under the same roof.
That is something Teresa Sardine and her adult sons didn't think about when she moved from Florida back to their home in Fayetteville, Georgia, at the beginning of the pandemic.
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Terese Sardine, 62, moved in with her sons to ride out the pandemic. Then, they started getting sick.
"I moved back in March when everything started happening," Sardine says. "They were, like, 'Mom, you can't stay there; you've got to come home.'
So, the 62-year-old found herself sharing a home with her two sons, Gary and Jason James.
They felt safer together.
But, a few weeks later, Jason James, a 34-year-old forklift operator, says he started struggling to catch his breath.
He believes he was infected with the virus by a coworker.
"I started to feel really weak," James says. "I noticed I was coughing a lot, and my chest was getting tight."
He has asthma, so they assumed he was having a flare-up.
Then, his temperature spiked, and they could not get it to come back down.
"He woke up one morning, yelling and screaming, and saying, 'I don't feel good, my back hurts,'" Sardine remembers. "The old-fashioned mother in me, I took Vick's, and I'm rubbing Vick's on him, and doing what I normally do. Then, I thought, 'Oh, my God! He's got a fever! I’d better stop! Two days later, I got sick."
Sardine also has asthma, and the virus hit her hard.
"I was really scared because I could not breathe," she says. "I was in a lot of pain. My chest was hurting."
Therese Sardine and her son Jason James both contracted COVID-19. Her other son Gary never got sick.
Both mother and son ended up at Piedmont Fayette Hospital's emergency department, where they were treated and released.
A few days later, Terese Sardine's condition worsened, leaving her too weak to walk.
They called an ambulance.
"It kind of killed me, because I knew she got it from me," Jason James remembers.
His mom spent 5 days in the hospital, unable to have visitors and fearing the worst.
"It was, like, 'Oh, my God. I going to be in this hospital, and I don't know if I'm coming out.'"
When Sardine was finally released, she spent another month recovering in her bedroom, with James quarantining just down the hall.
Gary James, Sardine's other son, never developed symptoms and took care of them, leaving food and medication outside their bedroom doors.
His mother says they didn't know until it was too late, how easily this virus can spread from one family member to another.
"I did what I thought I should have done," Terese Sardine says. "But, it wasn't what I should've done."
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Now, Sardine says, they know better.
She says they won't be traveling or going to any Labor Day family gatherings, as much as she longs to see her grandchildren again.
The virus makes getting together just too risky, Teresa Sardine says.
"It can be in anyone's system, and you won't know it until you get it," she says. "That's how sneaky it is.”
The group Get Georgia Well is urging people to be vigilant as they celebrate the three-day weekend.
Keep gatherings small, they say.
Socializing outdoors is safer than crowding indoors.
And, the group says, wear masks, stay 6 feet apart from strangers in public, and wash your hands.
RELATED: CoronavirusNOW.com, FOX launches national hub for COVID-19 news and updates.