By Per Peterson
If anyone is wondering if they should take COVID-19 seriously, just ask Bruce Schelhaas. Or his wife, Dawn. Or his son-in-law. Or one of his granddaughters.
The Schelhaas family has been hit hard by the pandemic this summer, and are just now returning to a life of normalcy. And they’ve learned the hard way of the sporadic nature of the pandemic.
“It’s weird how some people get it and some don’t,” Bruce said this week. “Members of our family — some of them got it, some of them didn’t. No rhyme or reason.”
As the owner of Tracy Food Pride, Bruce returned to work for the first time last Wednesday after contracting coronavirus during a vacation in South Dakota.
“We had signs and symptoms that we really didn’t recognize as being COVID,” Bruce said. “My wife had fallen the week before and she had some aches and pains that she attributed to the fall. The reality of it was, her stiff joints were from COVID — it was making her really week.”
Bruce said neither he nor his wife suffered from the typical COVID-19 symptoms like coughing or a sore throat. He had a temperature for about four days and some sinus issues, and Dawn — who suffers from asthma — was experiencing extreme weakness. Still, however, the thought of them coming down with the virus didn’t enter either of their minds.
“We went to South Dakota on Thursday (Aug. 6) and by Saturday evening I’m thinking, ‘This isn’t really normal,” said Bruce. “Our energy level just kept going down and down, and by the time we are ready to get home we could hardly get packed up because we are just so beat.”
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.