In this spring 2020 file photo, David Parr, right, a member of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors, gives his wife, Caroline Parr, a hug during a surprise parade in her honor from Tye River Elementary School educators.
The Christmas season brought an unexpected visitor for Amherst County Board of Supervisors member Jimmy Ayers: a bout with COVID-19.
Ayers shared his account of he and his wife experiencing the virus over the holidays during the board’s Jan. 19 meeting during a night the disease and its many effects and residents and business owners was on the agenda in the form a resolution to send the state seeking the General Assembly’s intervention in state restrictions on crowds, activities and other safety measures.
Ayers said his personal experience with the virus brought mixed emotions to the matter.
“I dealt with open heart surgery in 2008. I thought that was a tough thing to go through,” Ayers said. “For about five or six days when you can’t breathe, that was really tough on me during Christmas. It was difficult seeing your children come to the front porch, lay the gifts on the porch, wave through the window and leave.”
Ayers said his 81-year-old mother also contracted the virus and has pulled through it. A close friend also recently died from the disease at age 63, he said.
“It would be hard to find someone who has not been affected by this,” Amherst Supervisor Tom Martin said.
Martin said a family member in his household recently had the virus and he had to quarantine as a result. One of his friends also recently lost a loved one because of the virus, he said.
“This past year has been trying for everyone,” Martin said. “Our daily lives have been disrupted the likes of which we have never seen.”
Nelson County Board of Supervisors member David Parr also felt the effects of the pandemic first hand when he and his wife, Caroline, contracted the virus.
Parr said he and his wife developed respiratory issues and difficulty breathing around the same time which lasted from Dec. 9 until just before Christmas. To this day, roughly one month later, Parr said he still can feel the remnants of the virus.
He said for about the first 10 days, the couple was “in pretty bad shape.”
“This thing is no joke. Just walking from the bedroom to the other end of the house I would need to rest,” Parr said. “It definitely took its toll on us, but we were lucky.”
Despite their symptoms, Parr said it took several tests before one came back positive, but the couple still limited contact with others. Upon receiving the positive diagnosis, the first thought that went through his head was other possible exposures, followed soon by what the long-term health effects would be.
“That now weighs in the back of my mind every time I walk up a flight of steps what has this done to my body long term,” Parr said.
Amherst Supervisor Claudia Tucker participated remotely during the Jan. 19 meeting because she recently contracted the virus, she said. She was diagnosed on Jan. 14 and said she has been vigilant in her adherence to safety protocols, which she supports.
“It is not like the flu,” Tucker said of her experience. “It’s a very strange illness and impacts everyone differently. I have been very fortunate in that I have a mild case but even a mild case is nothing to play with.”
She said her case is more neurological. Tucker advises residents to practice social distancing and she supports wearing masks.
“Unfortunately, all it takes is to touch a door handle right after an affected person touches it and you can be infected,” Tucker said. “But we have to live our lives as normally as we can. We can’t continue to keep our kids out of school and our businesses closed.”
Tucker said she has some relief in knowing she now has antibodies and the stress of catching it is gone.
“While I know intellectually that this virus can be deadly, it’s highly contagious and it doesn’t matter how strong your ‘constitution’ is. Contracting it is one of the scariest things that’s happened to me in a while,” Tucker said. “You feel like you’re a ticking time bomb because you don’t know if you will be one of the lucky ones with mild symptoms or if you will end up in the hospital or worse. But you know it’s in your body and there will be consequences.”
Tucker has high hopes for the vaccine and said she will get it as soon as possible.
“I did all the things you were supposed to do and still caught it,” Tucker said. “I’ve been lucky.”
Even with the vaccine rollout taking place across the commonwealth, Parr said it was prudent to continue safety precautions.
“I think we all have a responsibility to the people around us to assume we have COVID at any given point in time,” Parr said. “We went a week before we had a confirmed diagnosis and all I could think about is who could I have exposed during that week.”
January 27, 2021 at 11:45PM
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'This thing is no joke': Amherst, Nelson supervisors describe experiencing COVID-19 - Lynchburg News and Advance
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