HUDSON, Ohio — The Peacock family's battle with the coronavirus started like many stories you've heard, even for five-month-old Madelyn.
"Some congestion, fatigue, just kind of irritable. I mean, she was five months old, so I couldn't really ask her exactly how she was feeling," said mom Lauren Peacock.
What they thought was initially a cold was actually COVID-19. Lauren, her husband, and their two daughters all tested positive.
"About two weeks later, you know, once we were out of our quarantine period, it seemed like everybody was doing pretty well," said Lauren.
The kids went back to daycare...and the parents went back to work. Then Lauren, a nurse at Cleveland Clinic, got a message on her way home from a night shift.
"I get this picture of her feet and her hands and they're purple. And they're like, 'hey, you know, Maddy's really not feeling too well. I think you should come and pick her up,'" said Peacock.
The Peacocks rushed their baby to the emergency room, where little Maddie tested positive for COVID again and took a turn for the worse.
"I can see out of the corner of my eye, her heart rate is like going up into the two forties to fifties to sixties. And I can see that she's having a hard time breathing. She's grunting, her eyes are closed and I just turned to them and I said, 'this is not her baseline. You guys need to get people in here because this isn't normal,'" said Peacock. "My husband and I were just like sitting there sobbing because like at that point I really -- she just really didn't look good. I really felt like we were going to lose her."
Doctors got Maddie stabilized in the ICU and diagnosed her with MIS-C. Cases of Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, a condition where some organs become inflamed, have spiked for kids who've had COVID-19.
Maddie spent 10 days in the hospital, recovering with the help of an antibody treatment typically reserved for cancer patients.
Maddie is now 15-months-old and thriving...but Peacock still worries about the future.
"Please, please put your kid in a mask. Keep social distancing, vaccinate them if you can," said Peacock. "It was really, truly a parent's worst nightmare."
Watch the full Facts Not Fear: Kids and COVID special in the player below:
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