We had COVID | Dave and Ashley Willis

Hey, guys.

Hey. Good to see you guys. It's been probably the two of the hardest weeks of our life since we saw you last. The last video we did was two weeks ago tonight. And after we did that live video, we both started to experience some symptoms, and those symptoms turned out to be a positive test result for COVID 19. So for the last two weeks, we've been in quarantine and just kiddos with our kids. And so just tonight, 14 days from the start of our symptoms, we've been finally released to. To be able to kind of go back out into the world. But we've. We've had COVID 19 for the past, you know, two weeks.

There's always people passing by.

I'm sorry. You know. Yeah, we're out tonight for the first time. Parking lot for the first time in a couple weeks. And we just wanted to come to you just to check in and let you know kind of what it's been like. Because, you know, this isn't. We've had to lean on each other during this time. It's been a time to kind of strengthen our own marriage. But we have been really, really sick.

Like, we're much better. Some people are saying you have the virus. We are through it now.

Well, we're.

Yeah, we've done exactly what the doctor said.

We've done everything the doctor said. So we're through the 14 day quarantine, which is the last time that we saw you guys. But it's been.

It's been horrible.

Two of the hardest weeks of our life. We have felt absolutely terrible. And so tonight, you know, we'll talk a little bit about marriage and about leaning on each other, but we just want to encourage you guys to like, you know, stay safe.

Yes.

You know, this, this is. This is very real. This is not a political thing. I don't care if you're on the right, I don't care if you're on the left. I don't care if you're a republican. I don't care if you're a Democrat. You need to take this seriously.

It's a real virus.

There were several times over the last couple weeks that I was genuinely afraid for my life. Like, I couldn't. Well, I mean, you know, I was having trouble breathing.

We didn't know what it was at first. Like, I get really bad sinus infections, and for me personally, it felt like a really bad sinus infection. And we've been actually in the process of moving, and when you move, you're exhausted. And so we Kind of like, just thought we were tired because of moving. And then Dave, one night, like, literally lost.

It was two weeks ago tonight.

He lost his footing and, like, passed out in front of our children. And that's exactly when I said, oh, gosh. Like, this is. We gotta take this seriously. Something's very wrong here. This is not normal.

We both went and got tested. Yes.

It takes a while to know.

Yeah. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until like, a week later that we were both positive for COVID 19.

But we quarantined ourselves.

Yeah, we started the quarantine two weeks.

Ago, even though the doctor himself did not think we had it. I mean, he treated it as if we had any kind of, like, bacterial infection.

Right.

But it started out with, like, just feeling exhausted. And then it moved to fevers, and then it moved to body aches and chills, which are unlike anything I've ever felt before. And. And then for me, personally, it moved to. I mean, I had sinus pain the whole time. And then I had nausea. Really bad, like, to the point I had to get on Zofran because I couldn't make it through the day. I couldn't even get out of bed without just feeling horribly nauseous. And Dave, he didn't have as much nausea. He didn't have an appetite, though.

My. What I had, like, my symptoms were I had the worst body aches that I've ever had. Like, I would. I was exhausted. Yeah. All the time. But when I would lay down, everything hurt. So I couldn't go to sleep unless I was, you know, taking a bunch of, you know, Tylenol or Theraflu.

Theraflu was our friend, definitely.

Yeah, it was definitely our friend.

I just wanna say, Jamie, we are praying for you.

Yeah, we're praying for those who are.

I am so sorry. You guys have Covid right now. I'm just praying for you guys.

It is the worst. It is terrible. I mean, so I had terrible body aches. I had the fever. I had chills. My body temperature was, like, all over the place. So I would go from being freezing cold to being feeling really hot. I would lay in bed and be sweating and be cold at the same time.

Like, to the point where we had to change the sheets because it was so nat. Like, you could see his body line.

I lost my appetite for a while. I lost. For. For. Not for the whole time, but for about three days. I lost all sense of taste and smell.

And I did, too.

Like, I couldn't smell anything. I couldn't taste Anything and so I didn't want to eat anything. Like it was the weirdest thing. I would, I would put my, my nose over something that had a strong smell and I wouldn't be able to smell it. Yeah, I couldn't. So you know, I couldn't taste either. I didn't get the severe nausea that Ashley experienced, but my stomach was unsettled for pretty much kind of the, the whole time. And so like I didn't have, you know, an appetite. So I went a few days with, you know, kind of barely eating anything. I would force myself to eat just to kind of get, you know, kind of get some, some kind of nutrients and some kind of energy. But, but you know, during the most critical part of it, like, like I had to force myself to eat just to have some kind of energy. But it was, it, it was rough. Like we were praying. We weren't posting on social media at all during that time. Like we weren't like saying like kind of follow our Covid journey. This is the first time we have posted since the symptoms started two weeks ago tonight because to the end of the doctor prescribed two week period of kind of isolation and quarantine and we didn't want to just kind of like use the whole time to be a social media thing. So we wanted to wait until we were coming out of it. We're coming out of it now. Thankfully we've had some close friends and family just you know, praying with us and for us during this time. And so we wanted to come to you just to let you know we're, we're okay now. We're through it. We're still not 100%. I have a feeling that it's going to be several more weeks before our energy level returns to 100% and apparently that's normal. The more research we've done, usually the symptoms in kind of non severe, non lethal cases last a couple weeks and then usually it's several weeks after that before your energy level returns. We, we've never been hit so hard by anything as we've been hit by this over the last two weeks and since, since that last video you saw, which was two weeks ago tonight. We went home that night and I just started feeling bad. Ashley very shortly after that started feeling bad and, and it became about as bad as we have ever felt in our lives. And so, and we've, we've been doing a pretty good job of so social distancing.

We've worn masks, sanitizer like all the time.

Yeah, we've, we've We've done those things. Our oldest son also got sick. You know, he. He seemed to recover pretty quickly. We've. We've tried to. Even though our whole family has kind of been on quarantine together these last couple weeks, we've tried to. We've. We've done our best to kind of stay away from our kids who are healthy, because we didn't want to infect them, which is really, really hard because we've got couple really young kids. And so trying to take care of them while at the same time trying to not expose them has been very difficult.

And that's the thing that I was telling Dave. Like, that was just so hard for me and for the children, just watching them deal with that. You know, as soon as we know they were testing us for Covid, knew that we were testing for Covid, we were like, you know, just in case, and we didn't know that we had it. I mean, at the time, too, we had taste and smell, and we've always heard that that's the main symptom. And so we were like, well, we probably don't have it.

Yeah, we just have. And so flu or something.

Yeah, like the flu. Because there's a lot of other things going around. And so we told, you know, especially our younger kids were who always want to hug you. You know, we're like, listen, just give us a distance for now. And we wouldn't let them come cuddle in the bed with us, and we wouldn't, you know, be touching them, because I just didn't want them to get it in case it was Covid. And I'm really glad we did that, because they ended up not getting it, thankfully. And so it is that close proximity that ends up really, you know, spreading the virus. But it's one of those things where it just. It's just crazy. Like, I think, like, when we found out we actually had it, it's just. It's hard to believe. But at the same time, it just goes to show you, it's very contagious. Like Dave said, we've been very cautious. And even still, we got it.

And so, yeah, and so, like, 40% of the people that get it have any symptoms at all. I think we probably got it from someone that wasn't showing any symptoms. You know, 2% of the people that get it actually die. And that's tragic. And we pray for those families that are dealing with that kind of tragic loss. Like I said, there were a couple times when we were at our worst that I had some genuine fears that I was going to be among that 2%, like where I was feeling difficulty breathing. And that is a terrifying feeling. I mean, that is something I've never felt before in my life. And so I'm so thankful that now we appear to be kind of at the end of the, you know, the symptoms. But like I said, you know, these have been two of the hardest weeks of our life that we're kind of coming to the end of right now. And so we'll probably, on the Naked Marriage podcast, do a whole episode just.

Kind of on being there for each other.

Yeah. Being there for each other.

What's been so hard about this is that we both are sick. Yeah, well, we're sick. I mean, we are, you guys, we are feeling so much better. A lot of you were asking. We're feeling so much better. Thank you so much for your kind comments.

Like, yeah, we're, we're through. We're basically through the symptoms.

We wouldn't be talking to you right now. Yeah, that's why we weren't in the clear. And we wanted to wait.

We wanted to wait until we felt okay before we, we came to you. We didn't want this to be like a, you know, we didn't want to exploit. Exploit this for social media. We wanted to wait until we were through it. So for two weeks, we've had kind of silence on social media and now we're coming out of it. We're through the kind of our two week quarantine period as of tonight. And so we just, we're announcing for the first time that we've had this. It's probably the worst thing we've ever had.

Oh, definitely. I mean, you know, and my heart goes out to people who've had worse things. I mean, I know there's a lot of you who've experienced worse things or maybe you've been through Covid and you had an even worse reaction to it. And we just want to pray for you. We want to just tell you that we're. We are praying for you and that you're going to get through this. And our hearts break for you and with you and, and just to take it seriously, I think that there's been a little bit and in the back of a lot of our minds, like, oh, well, I would, I won't get that. You know, I'm perfectly healthy. And, and I think that that's a little bit cavalier because it can happen to anybody. It really can. And a lot of you have asked, you know, Were we wearing masks and. And doing our sanitizer? I'm reaching up my purse down here. I literally have like three bottles of sanitizer in my purse. I'm like the sanitizer person always giving that to our kids. And today, and we wore a mask all the time. Like, we've been extremely cautious and mindful of that. And, you know, because we. We follow what. What the guidelines are. And our. Our kids too. You know, we live in an area where they are going to school. Right now our kids are not going to school because, of course, quarantine, but our. Our county is going to school, and they're having them wear masks and they're having any parent who has to go to the office or be in the building of any kind. Like we did before we actually got Covid. We had some open houses and we wore a mask there. And everybody was very cautious in social distancing. And they even have, like, middle schoolers and high schoolers going on A and B days where they don't even have full population of schools, trying to be so mindful of it. So we were following protocol. And we also honestly were hunkering down as a family, not really going many places. I mean, like, for a long time, we've been that way.

I think what happened, I think it was me letting my guard down because we had been so vigilant about wearing masks, you know, following the precautions, social distancing. And then I went back, you know, and actually preached a sermon in my home church, which was doing some live services. And for that one morning, it's like I just. I let my guard down and I was. I was hugging people. I wasn't wearing a mask in between services. I just kind of had this false sense of security that, like. Oh, you know, it's.

With familiar people.

Yeah, yeah.

Which were totally friends.

You know, these are. These are, you know, people. They're all seemed healthy. They all seem fine. And I'm almost positive that.

That we don't know that for sure.

That's where I got it because, you know, like Ashley said up until that point, like, we had been extremely cautious. And then I think Ashley got it from me and. And, you know, the symptoms started and, you know, and we just kind of went from there. And so we're coming to you tonight, sharing all this and.

And I know there's passionate feelings, like, I don't know what's being said because.

We can't see every comment. We haven't. She doesn't have her glasses on.

I don't have glasses on either, but I see some people saying, don't be so rude to them. So there might be some hateful comments on here. And I just want to say, guys, you know, please give us the respect that we're giving you. We know we all have different opinions on things, and all we're doing here is just telling you our personal journey and kind of what we've been through. And we have followed protocol like we have. When the doctors said quarantine, we quarantined. We did exactly the time that they told us to do. We have kept our kids home. Even before they asked us to keep our kids home, we kept them home. And, you know, we're trying to do the best we can with the knowledge that we have. And so I would just hope that you would give us the respect that we would give you with your story. And I think in this climate, guys, more than anything, we need kindness and we need understanding and we need grace and we need knowledge. And you know, as Christians, that that is our calling, is to be kind and to be full of grace. And so, you know, we've been reluctant. I'll be honest with you guys. We've been reluctant to come on here because of things like that, because we know people get really emotionally charged about these issues. And so let's all be respectful and let's all be kind. And I wouldn't wish this on anybody. I mean, this is a rough illness.

I would not wish.

And there's some people who've had it worse than us.

Oh, my gosh. People have lost their lives. Many people. And. And I see why, after having it, I see why someone. How this, this illness could take someone's life.

Yeah.

Especially with any kind of compromised immune system.

Absolutely.

You know, and I, I actually.

You have an autoimmune disorder.

I have an autoimmune disease. I have a pre existing condition. And so when I got this and some of the feelings that I felt, you know, just to be really honest, like, I've been genuinely afraid at several points during the last couple weeks. There was one point where I was. I got really disoriented. I got kind of in a coughing phase and could not catch my breath. And I ended up laying down on the floor in my house disoriented. And it was in front of my kids. And I hate that they saw that because to them, it looks like I just, you know, passed out and they were afraid and I hate that they saw that because I was laying there on the floor disoriented and they're like, mom, Mom. Yeah. And it was. It was.

I mean, thank God it wasn't much worse. Like, it could have been so much worse, you guys. Like, we're just thanking God that we're okay. We're okay and made it through, but it's serious. Like, this is a serious illness.

It's a serious.

It's a real thing. I think, you know, there's so many different things we see online, and. And the reason we wanted to come to you is just out of a responsibility just to. To just tell you our personal story and to say, like, anybody who's going through this, we're praying for you. We are with you. And just for. For those that, you know in your life who are dealing with this, be praying for them. Like, it's. It's a really, really tough illness. You know, he had a lot of friends. We didn't really tell a lot of people, but we. Like I said, we just.

Yeah, you're the first ones to be hearing about this, really, other than our.

We have not put it out.

Close friends and family. We have not put this on social media, on our personal pages. We've not.

We've don't want to expose anybody. Like, we were like, we don't want to. Like, we have some elderly friends of ours who are. Who are like family to us, and they kept on reaching out, and we're like, just pray. We don't want to expose you.

Like, Right.

And we don't want you to even leave a meal. Like, don't come anywhere near here. We don't want you to be exposed to this. And. And I know that's hard to probably understand, but we. We. We're just, like, we don't. We don't know. Like, we just don't want to. And I'm a clean freak. Like, I'm disinfecting everything continuously, all the time.

She's the cleanest person I know, guys.

I mean, I'm just like, I don't want to expose anybody.

This is, like, Ashley is, like, super clean. Like, she disinfects everything all the time. Even before COVID 19 was a thing.

Yeah, I use bleach. I'm a bleach person.

And so, like, it still somehow, like, snuck its way. I think it threw me into our family, and I feel really guilty that I was kind of the gateway through which it came. But, like, this is not a political message at all. This is not a Republican message. This is not a Democrat message. This is just us coming to you as part of Our online community saying, like, we're okay, we've, we've come through it, we have survived it by God's grace, but just to have compassion for those who are suffering, for those who are fearful, and for those who are afraid, because having had it, I see why there's so much, you know, there's so many passionate feelings around this. Again, 40% of people don't have symptoms at all.

And so we had some friends here who didn't have symptoms.

Right. And I think that gives some people a false sense of security. You know, 2% of people die from this. It has about a 2% mortality rate right now. And, and usually those folks who, who die have a pre existing condition. Yeah, I have a pre existing condition. Guys, I was worried about this. But for those who are in between, like we've been who catch it and live through it, it can still be incredibly serious. And for us, for the last two weeks, it has been again, two of the hardest weeks of our life to. Just because. And the fact that both of us were dealing with it at the same time. You know, we always say a strong marriage. Ashley often says a strong marriage rarely has two strong people at the same time. It's taking turns being strong for each other. We could not be strong for each other like our poor children. We were weak. We've been weak at the exact same time. And so, yeah, we've been working through that together. And this is totally just kind of raw and unscripted. We're still not 100%. Like, we're, we're cleared after having two weeks of symptoms and we don't have fevers anymore.

And like, we haven't for a very long time.

We're clear to be able to like, put on our mask and go back out into public. But it's probably going to be a few more weeks before we actually feel 100%.

Because like even gatherings, somebody was saying about gatherings, like, I felt real leery about that.

Yeah, like we're not, we're not getting with people.

No, no, we have not literally.

We'll go out to the store and stuff, but with our masks on.

Well, now.

Yeah, now, but, but like we're, it's probably going to be a while before we're like out in group settings and that's, you know, that's just have people over. Like, we're, it's just kind of part of it.

You know, we just want to be very cautious and, and like I said, we don't want to, we don't mean to.

We don't want to be the reason why someone else gets it. I know that people are going to keep getting it for a while, but we don't want to be the reason.

Yeah, it's a crazy time. So we just appreciate you guys listening to our story, and we wanted to let you know, like, why we haven't been on here, and it's because we've been recovering, and we've been trying to the best we can to, you know, take our zinc. A lot of you have been asking, like, what pills we've been taking. Our doctor, like, we went. Literally, you guys, they had us in there for two minutes because of COVID They don't want you in there.

They did not want to be around us.

They didn't think we had it. Like, he thought we just had, like. I had a sinus infection. He thought you. You had, like, the flu, basically, and gave us, like, an antibiotic, and I can't even remember what else. Like a cough. Cough medicine. But no, the antibiotic ended up making me really sick, and I ended up. I mean, it wasn't doing any good anyway, because our tests came back later that we were positive, but I ended up having to get on Zofran because of my nausea. And other than that, we took, like, theraflu. That really helped somebody. Somebody said Tamiflu. No, we did not take Tamiflu because.

Theraflu was over the counter. It helped with the symptoms. We also took Tylenol, vitamin C. We took zinc, zinc. The vitamin zinc apparently is, you know, is. Is helpful.

And our friend, who's a respiratory. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, sweetie. Our friend, who is a respiratory therapist, like, we had reached out to her, and she said, take zinc.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So zinc and vitamin C were recommended, and we did that. She also, who's a respiratory therapist, said, you know, try to sleep on your stomach, which can kind of open up your airways.

Yep.

So I tried to do that even though, like, I would. I would wake up with just really intense body aches and backaches.

Yeah.

Sleeping that way. But, you know, we've gotten.

Tylenol. Was your friend.

Tylenol was our friend. I've taken a lot of. Quite a bit of Tylenol the last couple weeks.

Yes.

You know, but listen, you know, we are not doctors. We're not trying to, you know, we're not trying to pedal, like, kind of specific remedies that, like, you know, we're not trying to sell you anything. We're just kind of telling you Our journey over the last couple weeks, that it has been a very, very hard two weeks, and we're just now coming out of it.

This is the first time, you guys, that I have done anything to my hair. You're looking at anything. Oh, you're looking good in two weeks. I mean, literally, you don't need makeup. Just not feeling that energy. And that's the thing, you know, Today we actually were able to go on a walk this morning, which felt so good, because as you guys know, we share in here all the time. Like, walks are a huge part of our. Just daily.

We haven't had the energy, you know, we have not done anything.

We've done nothing.

Like, Like, I've just not. We've not had the energy to do it.

No, it's. It's been crazy. And again, we're quarantining with our children, so. And we're keeping them away from us until today. Like, now we're in the.

Like, today is two weeks. And so we're like, you know, we're.

But that's been interesting, you know, for sure. And I'm like, I have this pump of sanitizer I'm sending no matter what. I'm just like, get sanitizer all the time. And they're like, mom, you know, just wash my hands. Like, wash them again. Wash them again. I have Lysol, and I'm just spraying every surface I could possibly think of. We've changed our bed multiple times. Even though we're the only ones in there, I just want to make sure the germs are gone. Like, we're just trying to be really mindful of that. And for a little bit, I didn't want them to have, like, any food that I had touched. You know, we were trying to be real. Like, how can we not touch it? Like, we just want to make sure we don't spread this illness. It's very complicated. But we had some friends, like, some sweet, sweet friends at our work, you know, give us a gift card to Instacart. And so we got our groceries just delivered to us. And, you know, you have to think outside the box that way because you don't want to expose anybody in your family and outside your family. And so just trying to be so mindful of that, it's just really. It opened our eyes, you know, I mean, we knew this is. We've always known this is a real thing and that people are really dealing with this. But when you go through it yourself, it's a whole other level.

It is A whole other level. And so, guys, thanks for your comments. We have. We'll go back and read these. We haven't read all of them. Someone's talking about a liver detox after Tylenol. We. I have been drinking a lot of celery juice, which is a natural.

And the liver thing's real. Like, we were feeling that.

We were.

Like, we don't want to hurt ourselves.

Right. And so I scared. Skipped some days of taking anything just to kind of give my liver a break, even though I was in pain, because I know that to take Tylenol that long or anything that long is not healthy. And so I've been trying to be mindful of those kinds of things. But thank you guys for your prayers and for your encouragement. We are. I feel like right now we're kind of, you know, at the finish line of. Of the. Of the symptoms. I think that we're. We're kind of, you know, that's why we waited these two weeks before we. We came to you. We wanted it. We wanted to wait until we could really share some good news with you.

Yeah.

If you're going through this, we're praying.

For you, and please let us know if you are. I know.

Yeah.

We're all kind of leery about even letting anybody know because people get very emotional about it, and. And they sometimes make accusations. And so I'm just so sorry if you're going through that and you feel like you. You can't tell anybody.

Yeah.

And I feel that. I know that. That anxiety, Like, I know. And. And just FYI, another thing about this virus, it's so weird is. And I've heard this from multiple people who've had it. It brings on anxiety. And I'm not talking just with mental health, but, like, it actually physically manifests itself with bringing out anxiety.

And I. I felt that.

It's the weirdest thing.

I felt just like, anxious.

Anxious all of a sudden.

And. And so when she said that, that's an. Yeah. You know, anyway. Yeah, we did have shortness of breath.

I mean, very little. Like, we're very blessed about the shortness of breath. We've had.

We've had some nausea. We've had exhaustion. We've had shortness of breath. We've had a persistent cough.

I had a lot of sinus.

I had a loss of taste and smell. There were several days I could not taste or smell anything at all.

And so, yeah, like, I'm just now getting back. Like, it was so weird. I. I was. I didn't realize I lost my sense of smell. And then I. I put like a. I had this roller thing of perfume and I went. And I was like, can you smell this? And Dave was like, I can faintly smell it. And I said, I literally can't smell it at all. I can smell it now. I'm so thankful. I never valued my sense of smell so much.

Oh, it was the weirdest thing.

It was the. It really is free.

For a couple days, I could not taste any food. Food, so I didn't have an appetite anyway. So, like, I just. But even when I would eat something that would have normally a strong taste, I couldn't taste it at all, which is really weird.

And it would change your taste. Like, I remember I usually have coffee with Splenda in the morning and it tasted literally like the most disgusting thing I'd ever had in my life. I didn't drink coffee for days, which for me is a huge thing because I love coffee. Not Splenda. I'm sorry.

Stevia.

I normally have stevia in my coffee. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it for. For like a whole week, you know, I just couldn't do it. But it's. It's a very strange, strange illness for sure. But we're going to let you guys go. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Thank you for your prayers and for those of you who are going through this or even if you just have fear about it, please let us pray for you and let this amazing community pray for you. And we appreciate all your. Your kind comments and well wishes and we just. We've missed you guys. We've really. We had missed you.

And so we're going to get back inside to our kids. But like Ashley said, feel free to comment with whatever you're going through. We do go back and read these comments. Also check out the Naked Marriage podcast with Dave and Ashley Willis. We'll do this on the podcast, but we also have a lot of other other great episodes.

It just dropped on Monday on the. On the Naked Marriage podcast, Sexy summer quickies.

So check that out and. And we will tune back in soon. So thanks for the prayers.

Thanks for tuning in, guys. Bye. Bye.