My COVID Experience

Nida Wahid Bashir*

My struggle with COVID-19 started at the end of February 2020 with an attempt to answer difficult questions asked by my patients, colleagues and family, including my spouse and children. They wondered about the existence of COVID-19 and the validity of weird instructions given to them about social distancing and hygiene. My daughter, who always longs for hugs, had to be content with a smile and I could not satisfactorily explain the reason why.

We reached April metaphorically skipping the month of March and the struggle changed with an experience that promoted all of us from the status of learners to the learned. Donning the available protective gear, walking in the hospital corridors as an expression of solidarity with frontliners, the medical doctors, I had been pushing for adequate PPE (personal protective equipment).  As a surgeon, I considered myself the sideliner. I graduated from an advocate to a victim in just a few weeks. The process was painful, draining us physically and emotionally.

Saturday, 11th April, 2020 was spent in a grand cleaning of the house. Caution had forced the domestic help to stay home. By the evening, I had increased thirst with a sore throat, cough and body ache. I felt as if I had walked miles or had been given a good thrashing. I kept telling myself, “Oh! It is just the dust allergy.” “This happens when you don’t do regular physical work.” “It is nothing to worry about.” The night went by and I continued to give myself false reassurances while shifting my husband out of the bedroom and forcing the children to pack their bags and move to the farthest room in the house. Finally, the surgeon in me was forced by physician friends to stop playing bigger than life and go for the test.

That very night, donning protective gear, I ended up attending my elderly mother-in-law as her caregiver took off for Easter. “Nothing will happen, I was with her for less than 5 minutes with the right gear,” I gave myself another false reassurance.

But nothing worked. At 10 pm on Monday, 13th April 2020, a personal call from the head of the laboratory informed me that I had tested positive. “With my 18 years of experience in the field, I can deal with it.” Thanks to my dear friends in the city I had an oximeter, all the right medications including hydroxychloroquine and prone nursing was easy.

“There is no need to be scared as I am a big girl.” But the scare grew bigger for the big girl as my husband tested positive on 15th April 2020. Two days later, my mother-in-law and her caregiver also tested positive. The children went into reverse isolation, eating off disposable plates, locked in a room with TV and electronic gadgets. The caregiver was sent home to isolate and recover. It was I, the doctor in the house, who brought the disease and now had to help everyone get cured.

Fortunately, I was clinically better by that time and declared cured by CDC criteria. So I was ready to return to work: Attending to the other two patients, interacting with the children from a distance to take care of their emotional needs and responding to unlimited phone calls from my workplace, relatives, the DC’s (Deputy Commissioner’s) office and the Government of Sindh. I could do it all while continuing the grand cleaning of the house. “The bigger than life surgeon and the mother in me can do it all.”

With the mild disease, I had myalgias, drenching sweats and unbearable fatigue but maintained saturations all through and so did the others. We recovered from the physical disease but the emotional trauma still gives me chills. I brought the disease home. I could have given it to my colleagues in the hospital. Thank God all of them tested negative. I ended up being harsh to those who kept calling me from the DC’s office to ask me the date of my first test, my isolation status, number of rooms in my house and the need for testing even one month down the line. The stigma of carrying the disease was traumatic. People avoided me initially, my husband was asked to stay home for a month by his organization, the neighbors preferred to stay aloof and on top of that, one month later, four individuals dressed in full PPE ended up at our gate because someone had asked them to test one of us and my neighbours wondered if we had given refuge to COVID in our house.

My children have been totally shaken by this experience. They refused to step outside their comfort zone, the isolation room, wanting to ensure disinfection. They still prefer to hide themselves behind the screen and seem to have forgotten how to have a normal conversation without being irritable.

I am not able to answer the million dollar question, how did I get the virus? But can any of the infected healthcare professionals? Do any of them wonder about who to blame? Most probably none do and neither did I. I know very well that this risk is a part of my job, I have taken the oath. But did my husband, my mother-in-law and my children know that this risk is also part of their lives? Which oath binds them to take it?

* Nida Wahid Bashir, PGD alumnus (2010), Associate Faculty, CBEC, Consultant Breast and General Surgeon, Ziauddin Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan