Our Covid Experience

Both of us, me and my better half, work in IT and are fortunate to have the option of working from home. Hence, our movements were consciously restrained since February 2020, apart from situations that were unavoidable, e.g. death in family, request for a visit from close friends or a visit to a doctor’s office. We suspect that it started with a visit to a clinic for a medical check-up for my spouse that was due for a long time. While making payment at the counter, another person who was in the vicinity sneezed and that could have triggered it. Just a suspicion. There is no way to vouch for it with any degree of certainty. One interesting point to note here is that because of space constraints in some Indian clinics, the folks at the counter are usually more protected than folks making the payments or even the visiting doctors, who get exposed to unwary patients.

A few days after the above visit, as my slumber was melting into the wee hours of the morning, I found my wife – a habitual late-riser – loitering around in our room. Surprised, I got up to ask for the reason with the utmost temerity that a husband can muster after two decades of subjugation and got to know that she could not sleep for most of the night before because of severe pain in her body. A man possessed with optimism bias, I immediately concluded that it was a temporary problem – something that helped me enjoy the warmth of bed for some more time and cajoled me to another bout of early-morning ethereal sleep experience. When I got up next, she was still awake and suffering. I felt a bit of compunction for being lackadaisical but that did not change my convenient assumption.

The pain got worse the next day and light fever set in. While ignorance could be ephemerally blissful, openness to ask questions and explore possibilities was the need of the hour and at this my wife is a few light years ahead of me. I am at best an epitome of lethargy. She immediately plunged into her WAN (wide area network) of friends. One of them being a doctor at a Government hospital suggested a Covid-19 RT-PCR test. Even at that point, my optimist self remained stubborn. The fever kept increasing and my confidence waning. Finally, with the help of the same doctor, we got connected to a lab representative. The test got done the next day. Lo and behold, the report was positive! Trying to avoid exploiting our contact, we reached out to our family doctor. Unfortunately, he was out of station and we had no option but to get in touch with the same doctor-friend for a prescription.

A number of medicines started finding their way to our home and all others in our family, including myself, got started on a course of precautionary medicines. The next four weeks were nightmarish, to say the least. My wife’s condition got worse, I got infected, followed by my son, whose report was originally negative, and then my father. We have no clue how my mother’s report came negative since she would have been the only conduit to infect my father, who is a few years away from being a nonagenarian. Overall, my wife suffered the most, with a lot of complications like symptoms of pneumonia and blood clotting (detected through D-Dimer test), followed by my son, who also had breathing problems for a couple of weeks. After three rounds of painkillers, antibiotics and vitamins over a period of four weeks, my wife recovered and so did my son. I had mild symptoms of fever and cough and recovered within a week. We still do not know whether my daughter also got infected. On the one hand, it would be very unlikely not to be and on the other, she hardly showed any symptoms beyond watery eyes and cold for a couple of days.

When it rains, it pours, as they say. Coincidentally, our domestic help had to go back to his native place to attend to his wife’s gall bladder surgery. My wife met with a small accident accompanied by profuse bleeding in the washroom and I had to treat her since neither could we go out nor would a doctor visit us. All the while, my mother had to hold fort for about six weeks. She is close to being an octogenarian herself and when I look back today I still cannot fathom how she was able to stay strong both mentally and physically through the whole tribulation. Without her, all of us would have been in deep trouble. The only time she broke down before regaining her usual resilience was when my father’s report came. My reading is that an internal strength (probably derived from extreme faith in God) and an incomparable sense of dedication kept her going. Thankfully, my father – who was the biggest concern for all of us – did not show any serious symptoms. I need to add here that the discipline that my father showed during those three weeks is exemplary. All medicines on time; inhalation of steam four times a day plus sipping on warm liquids prepared by my mother and kept in flasks. All without one instance of failure! One day, I felt bad looking at my father’s face. Because of the strict regimentation that he imposed on himself he burnt his lips from the steam that he used to inhale.

It would not be honest on my part not to acknowledge the help that we received throughout this ordeal from one person. He has been through the thick and thin of our lives for the last sixteen years, since my daughter was born. He drives my car but is much more than a driver to us. While we hesitated to ask for help, it was he who came forward to meet our daily grocery and shopping needs. In fact, such is his heart that he prepared mutton stew for us on three occasions during this time. While educated neighbours were scared to come in our proximity, he kept his mask on, used sanitisers and came to our house daily. I am not sure what we would have done without him. Looking back, it almost looks like things were meant to happen the way they did. This might sound weird but there are times in life when I have this feeling of inevitability, inescapably intertwined in the fabric called life. Do you?

The definition of “isolation” kept changing all the while. Much before the Covid onslaught, if I may call it so, I used to enjoy it and found it a necessity, being an introvert. During the initial pre-covid phase, it became a recommendation and during the first phase, isolation meant just one room that houses me and my wife. At this time we were desperately hoping that our kids or parents do not get infected. But they did and the meaning then changed to two rooms of isolated patients. When my father was detected positive, the definition expanded to three rooms and almost lost its meaning since there was only one more room left, where we dine. One point to note here is that since the virus starts spreading two days before it gets active – this phase is called pre-symptomatic, meaning there is no way for patients to show any symptoms – it gets very difficult to stop the spread within a family. For instance, my son used to sleep with us. The first day when my wife was suspected of being infected, we moved ourselves into isolation but by that time it was late. So, my biggest learning is that folks who have not been infected so far, should take utmost precaution.

There are two additional points to note: one, Covid patients would get affected in varied degrees and those with existing conditions should be extra-cautious. The safest bet is to stay isolated (I derive almost a sense of Schadenfreude out of this recommendation for reasons stated before) and two, it is not as bad or scary as it looks although treatment, especially if someone has to go through additional pathological tests remains expensive. I could appreciate the challenges faced by our Indians brothers who struggle to make their ends meet. I do feel sad for them. I have tried to do my bit during these difficult times and would request all my friends to do so. Am sure they are already doing so, which is why they are our friends. In hindsight, tough times are tougher at a distance. When you meet them, they seem to have a sense of purpose, having things to share with you to make you wiser, humbler and more empathetic.