Stacy Brown said he and his wife Shenay took various precautionary measures to protect themselves against contracting COVID-19, a disease caused by a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2.
Stacy Brown said he and his wife Shenay took various precautionary measures to protect themselves against contracting COVID-19, a disease caused by a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2. According to the veteran journalist, they practiced “social distancing,” long before it was state-mandated, and avoided crowds. Given these variables, Brown says the two were “shocked” to hear the news their doctor delivered to them in the wee morning hours of Friday, April 3, 2020.
“We both went to the Emergency Room, and the doctor took x-rays. I was in room five, and my wife was in room six. The doctor brought my wife and I together to tell us both we were infected with COVID-19. We looked at each other. We couldn’t believe it. We had been extremely cautious to avoid not catching it. I believe we did everything right.”
At the time this article was written, there were a total of 579,005 cases of COVID-19 in the United States and 22,252 deaths caused by the disease.
“The first thing we thought about was the kids,” said Brown who has five children. “The hospital would not test them because they were not showing any symptoms. Why not test them? That was another story. From there, my wife and I talked about it, and called our trusted friends and told them to look after our kids if we died. Our plan was written out and done. This disease is a beast,
because you can feel it attacking your organs. Every night, I wonder if my heart is going to stop, or if my kidneys are going to collapse. That’s what it feels like. If God forbid, we don’t wake up, we want to make sure the kids are cared for. That’s what dominates your mind.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), COVID-19 is a disease caused by a respiratory virus first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China in December 2019.
The Browns’ children are 27, 21, 20, 13 and nine. At the time of this interview, Brown and his wife were in isolation.
“Three of our children live at home,” said Brown. “We are among the fortunate who have not had to go into the hospital and be put on a ventilator. We readily acknowledge as bad as things are, they could be a lot worse. I stay in the basement, our kids stay on the middle floor, and my wife stays upstairs in the master bedroom. It’s been a journey.”
Brown is a writer for The Baltimore Times and NNPA. A published author, his books include Celebrity Trials: Legacies Lost, Lives Shattered, So What’s the Real Truth.
When asked if he and Shenay ever determined where they could have possibly contracted the virus, Brown said: “The conclusion was scary. The doctor concluded and we concurred, that it was from a supermarket outing. During the outing, we stayed away from people, and when we saw people in the aisles, we turned and went the other way. The doctor told us we may have walked into an area where an infected person may have been and caught the virus. She said the virus can hang in the air four or five hours.”
According to the CDC, the virus that causes COVID-19 is thought to spread from person to person, mainly through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
“I remember a time when my kids would come home from school, and I would be in the basement,” recalled Brown. “They would make so much noise I would tell them, ‘be quiet. I’m in the basement now.’ It seemed annoying. But now, to hear them from the basement is joy to my ears. It’s hard not being able to see my wife and kids. But we do conference calls throughout the day.
“Even those not infected, have been affected. Everyone feels like a prisoner. There are folks on ventilators in hospitals and they can’t be seen by anyone. And there are those like me, and my wife who are in isolation. My hope is that more people will start to turn to their Creator. Most have turned away from their Creator. We are living in a world where it’s all about ‘me’ and ‘self.’ Hopefully people will dig into their Bibles and read them for themselves.”
To find out more about COVID-19, visit https://www.coronavirus.gov/