Ingeborg's Coronavirus Battle

*One of beloved Christian Surfers, Ingeborg and her family recently contracted the COVID-19 infectious disease. Below she retells the story of how God gave them piece through it all, even though her mother experienced severe symptoms.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that I had contracted COVID-19.

I share a house with my sister and another friend. One of our other friends called us, to tell us she’d tested positive for the virus. She’d been on a ski trip with my sister, and by the time she got the test results, my sister was already coughing a fair amount. 

In the week that followed my sister’s health deteriorated; coughing continuously and having trouble breathing. Her energy was completely sapped and she didn’t feel the need to eat. My other housemate got this heavy weight on her chest, massive headache, and felt exhausted. I only had a soar throat and headache for a couple of days, but that was all. I would have thought I just caught a cold, but the friend that was tested had the same (mild) symptoms as I did. After about two weeks all three of us recovered.

Sadly, my sister visited my parents before she knew she had the virus. My parents also got sick. My dad recovered after a week, but my mother got a long lasting fever. Every time we thought the fever would drop, it just came back again. Her energy was totally drained from her body because of that, and because of all the other symptoms. 

During this time we could not visit her, but we called her every day to see how she was doing, sometimes with a lot of us at the same time via FaceTime (we are a family of 5 sister’s ;-). Through the difficlty, we became closer as a family.

During the time that my sister and my mom were really sick, we as a family were concerned, but we also felt a lot of peace. And that’s God’s gift to us. Because of that peace I believed that my mom would be healed, the only question was when it would happen. A lot of people prayed for my mom at that time. Finally after 4 weeks, my mom’s fever broke and her temperature kept going down to a normal level. 

I am super thankful that God had His hand on all of us. Because I am also very much aware that a lot of families have lost loved one's because of the virus. 

This whole period has taught me a lot. But mostly to spend more time with the ones I love, including God, and live each day to the fullest!  

Ingeborg