At 2 in the morning on the 28th of December last year, I had the urge to vomit. I was not sure if it was a dream or a reality. I was feeling uneasy. My throat was dry and there was some amount of phlegm in my mouth that I wanted to get rid of. I had no sooner started spitting than I realized that I was still in the bed. Being lazy and needing more sleep, I was nasty enough to swallow the phlegm, but not nasty enough to throw it on the bed.
The next night at around 3 o’clock, I woke up because of the touch of some wet substance on my face and neck. Some fluid was dripping rapidly from my nose. I thought when I was asleep I had banged my nose against my bed or the wall, and, as a result, the nose was bleeding. “I am bleeding from the nose,” I told my wife, who was sleeping beside me. There was no response. “Bleeding from the nose… bleeding from the nose,” I repeated a few times, and when my wife heard the word ‘bleeding’, she sprang up from the bed and switched on the light, only to see that I had some water around my mustache and neck, which meant I had a runny nose.
The next day my body’s temperature was on the higher side (I was hot!). It kept increasing, and I had a headache. On the 31st of December, the headache was severe. I was down with fever, cold, and body pain.
I have read that fever is a good thing, but fever, when accompanied by cold and body pain, becomes a matter of concern because it could be what I thought it was, but being fully vaccinated, I hoped it was not what I thought it was. Yet to be sure, I decided I go for the Covid (also known as the Wuhan virus or the China virus) test.
The next day, which was a new year (1st Jan. 2022), I was feeling much better, so I thought I would not do the test and save the money. However, because of the insistence (or should I say persistence) of my family, I did it anyway. The report came in some hours; and it turned all my positive energy negative because I was Covid-19 positive.
I tried, upon the suggestion of some family members and friends, some Ayurvedic concoctions and drank plenty of water. I got a strip of FabiFlu, though I think I could have done without it, which contains Favipiravir that is said to stop the growth of the virus.
Second January went well. Fever, headache, cold were all gone. However, on the third of January, the pangs in the joints of the hands and legs were too much to bear. If someone had wanted my hands from the elbow and my legs from the knee, I would have just given them away. There was some pain in the calf muscles as well. The next day went in a similar fashion. But all the pain had vanished after that day.
On the sixth of January, I had strangely lost my sense of smell and taste. Losing smell and taste should have happened at the beginning of the problem with Covid-19; those were among the few symptoms leading to Covid-19. But whatever it was, I had to live with it. In two days, I got back my sense of smell and taste.
Covid-19 makes the body weak, but by eating well and drinking juices and plenty of water, I have gained back my energy. At this moment, I may not be as strong and healthy as I was before getting infected by the Wuhan virus, but in a few days’ time, I hope to be. The Covid-19 active cases in Mumbai, where I live, and elsewhere in India and the world, are burgeoning and destabilising the world, which was just recovering from the earlier blows. Staying home, if it is not necessary to go out and mix with people, is one way by which one can reduce the chances of coming in Covid-19’s way. However, ‘staying home’ and ‘not mixing with people’ is easier said than done. As soon as one variant of the deadly virus is gone, or reduces its effect, another emerges. This will go on, I suppose. But, we will find a way, as we have always found a way, to overcome all obstacles and to live.
Copyright © 2022 RAMU DAS
Ramu Das 