Mumbai: Meet mid-day’s COVID-19 survivors

COVID-19 survivors ward

‘Isolation is a confusing and scary thing'
Faizan Khan, senior correspondent (crime)

Reporting on the pandemic meant I had to visit the worst-hit areas of the city every day and do the rounds of police stations and the police headquarters. Around July 30, at the height of the pandemic, I developed a fever that refused to go. The doctor told me it was a normal fever. I, nevertheless, decided to get tested as I live in a joint family of nine, including my elderly parents. When I tested positive it was as if the ground moved under my feet. I immediately got everyone at home tested and five of us turned out positive. My parents and I had a fever so the doctor advised a CT scan for us, which showed a mild infection in my lungs. The authorities got me admitted to D Y Patil Hospital. My parents, brother and four-year-old niece were told to quarantine at home. As my wife had compromised immunity following a surgery in February, I had to send her and my kids to her mother's house. I was put off by the crowds at D Y Patil, so shifted to a private hospital. It took me 24 hours to get a bed. The cubicles had been created in a balcony at the hospital and I felt extremely isolated and scared there. But, here, my fever came down the very next day. However, I still had a cough and uneasiness for 10 days. Each doctor who checked me told me different things, confusing and scaring me further. On the 10th day, I got discharged, but for the next 20 days I felt uneasy and tired. I spent a hellish 45 days. I am very happy though that my family recovered within 15 days.

09
Day in Aug that I got discharged

‘The crippling fatigue lasted over a week. All I did was eat and sleep'
Pallavi Smart, senior correspondent

One weekend in December, around the time restrictions were being lifted, my second sister, her husband and I decided to visit our third sister in Pune. There, we decided to call a few friends over and make a get-together of it. When we returned to Mumbai, I got a fever that refused to go away despite medication. Then my sister whom I travelled with, too, got a fever and lost her sense of taste. And, then her husband and then my sister in Pune. When she tested positive, we all decided that we, too, had to get tested. My test results came on December 13 with my worst nightmare ‘COVID positive' printed on it. Seven of the eight people at the get-together that night tested positive. As I live with elderly parents, I immediately isolated myself and began looking for hospitals. My sister, her husband and I finally found beds at Bhagwati Hospital. At first, the doctors told me to isolate at home, but when they did a chest X-Ray, it turned out that I had a chest infection and the course of injections was immediately started. I was right as rain one day, and suddenly had a chest infection the next. But, I had no loss of sense of taste or smell. I spent seven days at the hospital but the worst was to come when I returned home. I began to feel extremely weak and was only eating and sleeping all day. I was hungry from all the heavy medication and exhausted from COVID. It took me a week-and-a-half to get over the crippling fatigue. The doctors then advised me to get back to any physical activity, even walking, gradually. It took around 18-20 days for me to recover. COVID last year was a fearful disease, I am very grateful that my family and I came out of it largely unscathed. How did I get it? Turns out my sister in Pune, who works with an NGO, used to go to work every day. Her colleague had tested positive for COVID.

‘I was unrecognisable after I was discharged as I had lost weight'
Vishal Singh, deputy assistant editor (crime)

Chasing stories during the pandemic meant I had no idea that the dreaded C was, in fact, chasing me. Even though I took every precaution, I still landed up in hospital and needed ventilator help for eight days. It all started with a fever. My older brother as well as my younger brother had got a fever before me and both recovered within days. When I got it, my fever refused to go despite medication. Thinking it was malaria, I got a blood test done not once, but twice and both showed up negative. It was March last year, when confusion around COVID was at its peak and fever was being talked of as a first symptom. And, then I began to have a little difficulty breathing after the most basic movement. I started getting scared. When I tried to find a hospital bed there were none at all to be found in the city. I immediately told a friend, who called the Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani, who very kindly arranged one for me at KEM Hospital on March 23. There I tested positive and was put on a ventilator as my oxygen levels had dropped to 77. For eight days I was scared, alone and struggled to fathom what was going on but thankfully had some fantastic medical personnel around me. I was closely monitored every single day and finally was able to breathe without difficulty on the eighth day. Once I got back home, however, I had a terrible weakness and it took me another 15 days to regain my strength. Friends who saw a picture of me in an earlier report on my experience called back worried asking if this was indeed me as I had lost a tremendous amount of weight thanks to COVID. I am just very grateful to have been able to come out of this experience in one piece. My advice to people would be to please wear masks and sanitise. The symptoms of COVID are simply too horrible to bear.

15
No. of days that it took me to fully recover

‘It was 45 days before I tested negative'
Pradeep Dhivar, principal photographer

My job requires me to be out there, come hell, high water or the pandemic. Yet, COVID did not touch me in all those months. It was around Diwali, in November, that my son developed a cough and cold that had refused to go away despite treatment. We went to two-three different doctors yet nothing seemed to work. I, too, had a cold for a few days and one of the doctors advised that we get my son tested for COVID. We were shocked when he tested positive and on the advice of a colleague we got him admitted to the Jumbo COVID Centre at BKC. My son was alone and scared for the first two days. But, then the reports of me, my wife, and daughter returned positive. I immediately informed the local civic authorities, who took us all to the BKC Centre in an ambulance. Once there, we were tested for everything - diabetes, hypertension, chest infection, heart trouble. Panic set in and I was extremely stressed out worrying about what would happen. We were surrounded by people who were alone and confused and that angst just got to me. But, the doctors at the BKC Centre were top class. Counsellors visited us twice a day asking us if there was anything worrying us and reassuring us that we would be fine. Doctors came by every day enquiring about any symptoms and giving us medication. On the 12th day, we were all tested again and told to quarantine at home for 14 days. We tested again, and I was the only one who was still positive. I was told to isolate at home. I spent another 14 days alone inside my room. For someone who thrives on roaming the city for my work, I spent 45 of the most stressful days of my life cooped up within four walls.