‘The Virus Doesn’t Discriminate:’ One Young Woman’s Battle With COVID-19

Robyn Ulrich said that if there’s one positive to having COVID-19, it’s that changing her baby’s dirty diapers was not so bad anymore.

The loss of her sense of smell and taste were the only persistent symptoms Ulrich, a La Grange 31-year-old stay at home mom of four, said she suffered from.

Ulrich said she wants to put a public face on the pandemic locally to help educate people, keep them safe, and remind them that “the virus doesn’t discriminate.”

“Everybody’s story is different, but this is mine.”

She can laugh about it now, but it was actually those dirty diapers that tipped her off earlier this month that something might be wrong. One of her older kids (Robyn and her husband Travis have kiddos ages 6, 4, 3, and 1) said they thought the baby needed a diaper change, but Robyn couldn’t smell anything.

Gradually she noticed that a lot of “things were smelling and tasting different. The only way I can describe it is that everything was smelling and tasting really pure.”

“My airways were clear, otherwise I was feeling completely normal.”

But the Ulrichs had a vacation coming up and she just wanted to be sure, so she contacted her health care provider who advised her to get tested.

She packed up her four kids and drove to the urgent care facility in Giddings which had a “redi-test” where you could get results within a couple of hours instead of a couple of days.

“I wanted to know right away,” Robyn said.

They took all of her vital signs – no fever, good oxygen level and then they took a nose swab. Shortly thereafter they informed her of her positive test.

“I cried the entire way home,” Robyn said. “I cried all day.”

“It was a scary time, dealing with the news of being positive, trying to remember anyone I had come into contact with to let them know, hoping I didn’t miss somebody.” And then the waiting began.

And then the waiting began.

The entire Ulrich family is quarantined at home currently. Her husband is showing no symptoms and neither are the kids.

Together Robyn and Travis have tried to keep things as normal as they can for their kids -- same bedtimes, still eating dinner together as a family and still doing fun things like making homemade ketchup with their tomatoes from their garden.

Isolating from the kids was not an option.

“The kids are glued to me. I have to remember, we didn’t ask for this. I still have to be a good mommy,” she said.

They’ve had help from family, and have done curbside delivery to get the things they need.

With all the extra time at home, there’s a lot of time to think.

“I felt shame. I felt guilt. I don’t know how I caught it, and that not knowing is scary,” Robyn said. “It’s been an emotional roller-coaster.”

One day she said had a really bad headache and some chest discomfort. By the next day those symptoms were diminishing and then Robyn said she felt back to normal. She has since taken another COVID test.

“I was just as nervous as when I took the first one,” she said. “When I was negative it was such a relief.”

Following that test she had to wait at least another 24 hours to take another test. If that test comes back negative as well she will be considered “clear.”

When she is clear of the virus, she plans to donate plasma.

Doctors have said that people who have fully recovered from COVID-19 for at least two weeks are encouraged to consider donating plasma, which may help save the lives of other patients.

“I’m just trying to find the positives out of all this,” she said.