TWIN FALLS — When Jennifer Liebrum, a middle school teacher in Blaine County, decided to take a side job and work at a wedding in Sun Valley, she never knew that would mean being part of one of the country's worst COVID-19 outbreaks.
"Through word of mouth I started learning that the woman I had worked directly with had been infected. Then I went on full on lock down. I still was feeling okay, but not too much later I started feeling sick," Liebrum said.
A couple days after working at the wedding, the wedding coordinator contacted Liebrum to let her know some people at the wedding had become sick, but told her not to worry. Liebrum was not concerned since she had no close contact with the guest at the wedding. But after finding out that she could have been exposed to the disease, Liebrum knew she had to quarantine herself for the sake of her family especially her 16-year-old daughter.
"I was worried because I had a kid who had a bone marrow transplant two and a half years ago and any outside invaders are potentially a danger to her," Liebrum said.
Jennifer felt fine days after the wedding, but not too long after she started to experience mild symptoms. She says one common symptom she experienced was loss of smell. She did not realize she had lost her sense of smell since she was not congested.
"The first thing I had was a runny nose and that was, oh that's not a symptom. But then I got these headaches and these headaches are other worldly. They're not migraines, they're not stress headaches. You just know there's something different," Liebrum said.
When she tested positive for COVID-19, Liebrum went in to quarantine for more than 30 days. She says this whole experience has taught her how important is to wear a mask and follow the stay at home order.
"My bottom line is this, that this lock down is painful for everybody, but it is going to save lives. Please to precaution because its so easy to save a life in this circumstance," Liebrum said.
