After a vacation to Disney World in the middle of March and a weekend in the Cities, the Dose family returned to their home in Lennox.
By the evening of March 15, Dose’s oldest son, Braden, started feeling sick. By Monday morning, Dose and his wife, Michelle, were feeling sick. They self-quarantined for a couple of weeks, but they were still feeling sick.
During that time, they had been communicating with doctors and nurses who told them to stay home. After two weeks, Braden’s doctor finally said the three of them should get tested. In under 24 hours, they had their test results and they were positive for COVID-19. They stayed home for two more weeks.
Everyone in the Dose household had different symptoms. Braden had a high fever for a few days and coughed a little. Michelle had a low grade temperature for a couple weeks plus a heavy cough. Dose had a headache that went to a full body ache and then had intestinal problems for a week.
Their two youngest children were never tested but Dose believes they had it too. Their daughter had a weird rash the first week back from Florida. Their youngest son had a cold while in Florida but never felt sick at home.
With their vacation, they spent nearly six weeks at home.
“It’s especially bad for me because I can see my shop out the window in my office. I would consider myself a workaholic. I enjoy working. I don’t know how to relax,” Dose said. “At least I could talk on my phone to people. It got long. I did things like organize my file cabinets which I’ve never done. You start running out of things to do.”
Besides watching TV and filing, Dose also worked outside during his time at home. He trimmed trees and worked on getting his mowers ready.
While they were stuck at home, they had a lot of good friends and family drop off food and necessities on their driveway.
“We had friends calling two, three, four times a day, just to see if we needed anything,” he said.
The two youngest children, Gracie and Carter, did school from home during that time. Carter did great with the online learning, but Gracie missed her teachers and friends and learning in the classroom. She was also disappointed in not being able to play golf this spring, but she has been playing this summer in a league.
Once they came out of quarantine, they were cautious around their friends and family for a while. Finally, Dose and Braden started working in the shop again. He thought that would be the test—if people started dropping like flies in the shop, then they would know they were still contagious.
“We were careful the first two weeks. We cleaned stuff we never did before. We’re back into our old habits and we clean once a week now and not three times a day anymore. Nobody has been sick after a few weeks in the shop,” Dose said.
Dose and his family have returned to normal. He does not wear a face mask unless it’s required to enter a store. After visiting with three family members in the medical field, he said the best thing people can do is stay home if they are sick. He also noted that people need to wash their hands more.
“The best way to handle this is, if you’re sick, stay home. Don’t go out because you’re the one spreading this stuff,” Dose said.