My Covid-19 experience… Ongoing…

So, ever since the Chinese manufactured the novel SARS Coronavirus – SARS nCov2 – in their Wuhan lab, and spread it across the world, with the collusion of the corrupt & incompetent WHO & Tedros Ghebreyesus, everyone’s world has changed with many many people’s entire lives have been up-ended because of this virus and the health & economic devastation dealing with it has caused.

Thankfully, things have not been so bad for me. Professionally, the impact has been limited but personally – it has been SIGNIFICANT! I have had a couple of people from generations older to me (aunts & uncles), as well as someone from my generation (a 1st cousin), pass away on account of Covid19 (he had a co-morbidity too) and I also know very closely numerous people from family & friends who have become Covid19 +ve and have recovered.

Now let’s talk about my experience with this damn virus.

Yes, the reason I write this is because we (our entire family of 5) is now on the steady (albeit slow) path to recovery from Covid19. And the past 2 weeks – from the time we found out that we were Covid19+ve to now – have been a whirlwind.

So firstly, here’s the story first of how the virus entered our family. This is based on some basic deductive reasoning & a contact tracing exercise that the BMC had us undergo.

The virus entered our family from a cab!!!

It was a stroke of (bad)luck that my driver needed to go to his village for some work and at the same time my mother needed to go to her office to pick up her laptop, so she took a cab (wasn’t sure if it was an Uber or Ola).

The next day (Sept 2nd) she developed very mild symptoms (fever, slight cough) and they went away in 2 days. On Sept 5th, I developed mild symptoms (fever) and they went away in 2 days too. For a whole day thereafter I had no symptoms and felt fine, even conducted a seminar online. However, by Sept 6th, my mother’s symptoms had returned (low grade fever, cough, etc) and within a day – Sept 8th, mine came back too (high grade fever, cough, bodyache, etc). So we got ourselves tested.

This dude showed up from SRL Labs, looking like this, to test us. Woah! Imagine being like this all day?

Anyway, results came back Sep 10th morning. And, all 5 of us came up positive. Thankfully, our full-time help at home was not +ve. I was esp relieved coz she is pregnant.

Anyway, it was the BMC that called us first. Before the SRL Labs test result had been sent to us, and told us we were all positive. And then the flurry of governmental / doctors activity started. The BMC H East ward medical officer called and gave us an overview on what are the basic Do’s & Don’ts are as well as what to watch out for symptom-wise. This was quite reassuring. Dr Tejal from BMC H E ward and Swapna Pandey – health officer BMC H E ward have both been great to interact with. Esp Swapna.

That said, the BMC screwed up plenty too. A team showed up to ‘sanitise’ our house. Why, I have no idea, since we had anyway banished all house help and all 5 of us were positive. So sanitise our house why? For whose benefit? No clue. Anyway, they came and sprayed some stuff all over the house. And they carried massive amount of dirt & grime on their shoes while doing it, and spread it all over the house, so much so that we had to re-sanitise the entire house after they had gone. Seriously!

The BMC also needs to get its data gathering & communication strategy right. For a week after the diagnosis, all 5 of us kept getting calls from different people in the BMC who were all asking all of us the same questions about everyone. Finally on day 3, we stopped taking calls and only Pooja spoke dedicatedly to the H E health officer (Swapna Pandey – who had first called us) once a day about the entire family. On a daily basis, she would have a good & detailed (yet not rambling) chat with my wife, both to help us deal with our recovery as well as get the information she needed. If all BMC officers are as competent and empathetic as her, we would have been in great hands.

Anyway, immediately after the results, we got in touch with my GP and had a family-phone-consult. The kids had no symptoms. Pooja had limited symptoms, mostly a mild cough, a headache, sinus blockage, loss of smell & taste and some bodyache. Both my mother & me had major symptoms – fever, a decent-sized cough, crazy bodyache, major weakness, complete loss of appetite, reduced smell, almost no taste, et al.

Our GP (who has been an absolute rock-solid, available-whenever-needed, godsend support) put us on a course of medications – anti-virals, Vit C, Zinc, Multivitamins and told us to track fever & pulse ox closely. And ordered a bunch of tests.

Tests results came back. Mine weren’t so bad, albeit they were well below ideal. However, my mother’s were worse. She immediately underwent a Chest CT Scan the next day, where they detected more than 25%+ lung involvement with a large-ish pneumonia patch. Her oxygen was up & down too. Given her age (70) and all this, she was instantly admitted to hospital. There was of-course, the expected running around looking for a Covid hospital bed. Thankfully, our local doctor gave us great advice to basically go & sit in the casualty room of Guru Nanak Hospital – a Covid hospital just about 5 mins away from where we stay, and that they would put her a bed as soon as it becomes available. And that’s what my wife & my mother did. It was beyond my ability to even move at that point, so all I could do was on the phone. Anyway, my mother was admitted Sep 11th and her IV medication, oxygen, etc etc started. After a week's treatment, she was discharged from hospital and got back home on Sep 18th and is on the road to recovery...

Meanwhile, I was still doing the same – better on some days, not so good on others. I was literally having to force food down my throat because I had zero appetite and crazy weakness & bodyache (the kind where someone reaches deep down into the core of your strength and squeezes it out – hard to explain in any other way).

2 days into this, my GP asked me to do a Chest CT Scan too. I had 10% lung involvement (not so bad) but since some of my other test markers (D-Dimer + CRP + Ferratin) were not coming down, I was put on a course of steroids, to modulate my body’s immune response to the virus (which was now becoming more dangerous for me, than the virus itself).

About 5 days of a steroid course + 7 days of other meds later, on the 10th day since diagnosis, when the low grade fever still continued & the key test markers still would not come down and my pulse-ox started behaving funny one afternoon (suddenly started varying between 92-96 while it had always steady around 95-96), my GP suggested that I get hospitalised. Good advice!

And the run-around for another Covid treatment bed started. My GP spoke to his people in Lilavati. I spoke to my boss who spoke to someone who knew the Lilavati CEO. Meanwhile, my mother was giving my inputs on what the bed situation in Guru Nanak hospital was (it was terrible – no beds available). Finally, between my GP and others, I managed to get a bed in Lilavati Covid ward. Private / semi-private room blah blah didn’t even cross my mind. Seeing the situation, I was more than willing to take up any Covid bed that they could make available to me. And 17th September, I was admitted.

Lilavati hospital has been quite completely up-ended because of Covid. From the waiting area in the parking lot, to the triage area where they get you all ready for admission and give you any emergency treatment, as needed, to the Covid floor (8th floor is entirely Covid and for Covid only), every single person is fighting an uphill battle. There’s more people, more demands, more requests, more need than there are people or supplies. And it is a testament to pure human will & ability how their healthcare system has not broken down.

Anyway, the Covid floor is a sight unlike any other. In ‘single’ rooms, there are 3 beds, in ‘double’ rooms, there are 4 beds and the entire lobby (where you otherwise alight from the elevators) has been converted to an open Common Ward. It is here that I managed to get a bed. And the treatment started.

I was Bed No 867. Thankfully a window-seat with good sunlight. That I was not in a dingy room and had sunlight around me, really helped me feel better.

The hospital experience was good (well as good as it can be). The Lilavati healthcare staff are extremely competent!!! Seriously, they deserve all the credit in the world, a big massive bonus, lots of holiday time with their family and whatever else they want… Anything they want should be given to the on-floor nurses, attendants and of-course to the doctors! To wear that PPE kit (with many of them wearing a diaper underneath since they don’t have the time to take it off everytime they need to go to the toilet) and function the way they function, is beyond amazing! A testament to what humans can achieve!

Anyway, the planned & scheduled 5-day treatment went by as expected with the anti-virals and the steroids acting much more rapidly in IV mode, than they were orally (of-course). And by September 21st, between my GP, the doctor I was admitted under and the Covid ward in-charge, they all concurred that I should be kicked out of the hospital as I was on a steady path to recovery. I gladly accepted the discharge!

They stamped me with the discharge date & the date that I need to stay in home quarantine till (1 October, 2020) and let me go!

Its now the 4th day of me being back home. The fatigue is still very much there. And will remain for the next 2-3 weeks as per the Doc. But thankfully the appetite has returned, so has 75% of the smell and about 50% of the taste. The system-shock still exists and, as indicated by the doc, there will be sudden waves of fatigue when you really want to just hit the bed & lie down. This needs to be respected & adhered to. And I am very much doing it.

In all this time, we as a family, have been at the receiving end of an incredible amount of generosity, support, love, affection, strength, camaraderie, neighbourly-outreach by family, friends & everyone around us, including the society we live in – Sahitya Sahawas. My in-laws have been a godsend – sending us fresh home-made meals almost on a daily basis! Meals have been summarily sent over by neighbours multiple times too.

Messages & advice from those around me who have recovered from Covid19 have come in thick & fast. Also, the advice & input from doctors who are my neighbours in Sahitya Sahaws – and who I trust more than I trust god – has been more than re-assuring!!!

Things are getting better now. All 3 of us – Pooja, me and my mother are recovering well. I think the hospital treatment has actually helped me recover faster from where I was to where I am now, vis-a-vis a similar recovery curve for Pooja.

Anyway, this is far from over. We are in home quarantine & isolation for another week. Then atleast a couple more weeks of continuing to take extra precautions & care before we can do our anti-body tests around mid-October or 3rd-week-October.

After that though I am going to definitely take off for a holiday. Family, dogs, et al. Really need a restorative & salubrious period in our lives!!!

May The Force be with us!!!

P.S. Additional Edit - Some of you asked what all symptoms did we have and were they all uniform. That got me to do some quick table-preparation and this is what our symptom matrix was...