For weeks, country has been watching the details of the coronavirus pandemic unfold. At the start of all of this, experts believed children were at lower risk of having serious complications from this virus, which gave many moms and dads comfort. Parents are still urged to take precautions, however, and one family is warning others about why it's so important to remain vigilant because of their toddler's terrifying ordeal with coronavirus.
Luke Schreiber is a 22-month-old boy who lives in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and was diagnosed with COVID-19.
The family’s struggle began March 31, when the family was watching Frozen together. "He looked like he was passing out, I’m doing songs and acting crazy in the car and he just wasn’t responsive," Luke’s mom, Amanda May Schreiber, told the Detroit News.
"It was one of the scariest moments of my life."
Amanda, along with her husband, Ryan, had been taking their kids’ temperatures when the stay-at-home order was issued earlier in the month.
For days, their sons showed no signs of illness until that afternoon when both Luke and his 4-month-old brother, Alistair, spiked slight fevers.
"Luke woke up crying, which he never usually does, and he had a fever close to 103, a little more than Alistair's," Amanda said. "I immediately thought 'oh no,' but we didn't panic. We got them up, gave them Motrin and the fevers reduced quickly, so we hoped it was nothing to worry about.”
When the time came to check the boys’ temperatures hours later, the couple were shocked with how high Luke’s was.
About an hour after Luke's nap, and the family said their oldest son’s fevers spiked like they had never seen.
"Give me your forehead," Amanda told her husband, who registered a normal temperature of 98. "I promise you we checked it 10 times using two different thermometers and checking it on ourselves, too."
The family started to panic because "Luke was 106.5!" she said.
They quickly put him in a cool bath with cold compresses, but Luke was shaking and shivering. "Luke started screaming because it was cold, and we were obviously really scared because it all happened really quickly," Ryan added. "In that quick moment of panic, you know you have to jump in action."
The family decided it was best to rush their son to the hospital.
"I was a little stunned because I thought we had been doing all the right things all along," Ryan said, referencing the measures they took to try to protect their family from catching the coronavirus.
Luke was tested for COVID-19, and the results came back as positive.
“Six hours after we got to the hospital, his fever was still at 104.5. He stayed the night. It took just 12 hours to get the results back that he was positive for COVID-19 because they do in-house testing,” Amanda told the Detroit News.
"Doctors told us that with that temperature, any longer before bringing him into the hospital he's at a much higher risk for seizure and brain damage," Ryan said. "There's a lot of people who are, unfortunately, losing loved ones, and as long as we can keep Luke healthy, we're lucky."
The hospital was able to get Luke’s fever under control, and the family returned home to manage his symptoms from there.
According to Michigan Live, it’s been two weeks since Luke fell ill, and he’s still battling fevers of 101 and more while they are in quarantine.
"It’s just the lingering fever. It’s unbelievable,” Amanda said. “It goes away and comes right back. We have yet to see a day without a fever at some point. He gets exhausted way faster and just needs to sleep more.”
"It's important to stay vigilant," Ryan explained. "We thought we were doing everything that we could to prevent it. We were washing surfaces, we were cleaning hands, leaving mail and packages in the garage, and Luke still got it."
