Arlington Family Has 2 Children Battling Coronavirus, 1 Medically Fragile: 'We Were Doing Everything Right'
ARLINGTON, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - An Arlington family is dealing with a nightmare.
Not one, but two children testing positive for COVID-19.
To make the situation even more difficult, one of the boys is medically fragile.
"He was starting to get sick, he was retching," said Jeff Carlton. His 11-year-old son, Scott started going downhill earlier this month. "That was going on about a week and half two weeks, and then kind of slowly it seemed like different parts of his body were shutting down."
Scott was born with a terminal brain malformation, so the family is used to hospital visits. But when he was diagnosed with Covid-19 earlier this month, it was a stay like they've never experienced before.
"Even just the idea of doctors and nurses being fully gowned up and masked and wearing PPE for their protection, for the protection of the other patients, it just makes a tough experience even more uneasy," said Jeff.
Then, the second shock. Their healthy 9-year-old son Jeffery also tested positive.
"One day we're doing everything right for four months, and it still got in our house," said mom Catherine.
Dr. Maxie Brewer with Cook Children's Hospital cared for Scott.
"People have to realize that you do the best you can, and you can't always prevent this," she explained. In spite of his underlying condition, Scott spent just three nights in the hospital.
"Oxygen was the main stay for him," said Dr. Brewer. "The biggest deal was trying to get him off his oxygen for a period of time so we could make sure he was doing better to get him home."
Going home, however, came with new challenges. While the two boys were positive, Jeff, Catherine and their six-year-old daughter Jenna all tested negative.
"Truthfully the logistics of doing this at home when you have one healthy child and two who are covid positive is almost impossible," said Jeff. The family is finding a way to make it work. They're keeping apart as best they can, even having Jeffery wear a mask while inside. For the moment, they're all just happy to have Scotty home and on the mend.
" We thought this would be a death sentence and we know we're still not out of the woods of course, but this is our worst fear of him having it because we didn't think he'd recover," said Catherine. "His being home now is pretty miraculous and shows just how strong he is."
The family will have to stay quarantined for at least the next 15 days.
