Nurse Corona warrior Soumya talks about
fighting COVID-19
Soumya, a 35-year old nurse, left
District Hospital Sehore early on 1 September eager to spend time with her
husband and 10 year old daughter at their newly shifted quarters just outside
of Sehore Town near Transport Office. But on the way home, she felt something
was not all right. She began to feel fatigue, her throat scratchy, and that
nagging feeling that she could have contracted COVID-19 at her workplace.
She said she could only think of two
things: if she had corona, how to keep from infecting her husband and little
girl; and infecting all these other people in the apartment, her anxiety sank
in more deeply as she began putting the pieces together. “At that time, our
care facility did not have enough personal protective equipment and there was a
lack of disinfectant. We had to create
our own masks out of cloth or bandages, while more and more patients were
testing positive each day.” She knew the risk was real.
She could not hide the thought of
infecting her husband and daughter. After
reaching home, she set up a tent out in their work area, and slept there
to isolate herself. It was not an easy as the symptoms setting in: dry and
rough coughing, a 102o F fever, her whole body was aching, and
chills despite wrapping herself in layers of sheets.
After a visit from the AIIMS, Bhopal
for testing, her diagnosis was confirmed. She said, “I felt chills down my
spine – will I die? What will happen to my family? Will I survive this?” she recalls,
describing how the symptoms got worse, like her lungs were being attacked. She
could not breathe, her fever was fluctuating, and she lost her sense of smell
and taste.
The Civil Surgeon at District Hospital, Sehore and the M.P health services advised her to stay at home. As a mild case and owing to her young age, she could not be accommodated at any hospital. For over a week, she treated her cough with expectorant vitamins and her fever with paracetamol, and doubled up on liquids; as a nurse she was applying to herself the same care she would render to her patients. She made regular trips to the road near apartment alone to get some fresh air and sunlight, a luxury she said she never thought she had.
“I thought of how many others who are
cramped in small spaces, and how difficult it must be for poorer families who
live in slums in other parts of the world to even maintain any sort of physical
distance,” she says. Most importantly, she stayed in contact with family and
friends to talk about sports, movies and travelling; and did regular
video-chats with her husband and daughter – who were just in the next room. “So
near yet so far,” she now recollects.
She used her isolation to read
up on managing the disease, guidance on how not to infect other people, updates
on vaccines and drugs trials for COVID-19, and inspirational stories of
recovery. It was at this time that she started looking at life differently.
“When you’re left alone to battle a disease that has yet no cure and no one
really knows how to handle, not knowing if you live or die, while thinking of
who will take care of your family or if you will ever get back to work again,
you’re on survival mode. If I survive this, I will make it up – to my patients,
my colleagues, and my family,” she recalls telling herself.
On 19 September, she felt the
symptoms wane, and few days later her official isolation period ended. Because
testing at that time was prioritised only for the severe cases and older
patients, she was advised to monitor the gradual disappearance of her symptoms.
She also decided to extend her isolation to another week just to be sure –
despite her utter eagerness to hold her husband and hug her daughter again.
Now she is back on work, ready
to take up where she left off. Her hospital has also acquired more than enough
PPEs and disinfectants for the staff and the patients. She comes back ready
with a story to tell them, and reassure her patients that COVID-19 is not
necessarily a death sentence, that only very few die from it. “It did not kill
me, and instead it has made me more competent and compassionate,” she says.
Personally Interviewed by :
Mr. Pratheesh Krishnan
Associate Professor
Career College Of Nursing, Bhopal
