In this piece, which won the Opinion category in the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards on Thursday night, senior writer Tanya Farber shares her experience of catching Covid-19 in December 2020.
People say it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to keep the sick, elderly and high-risk safe from harm.Editor's note: This story, first published in January 2021, was named as winner in the Opinion category at the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards on Thursday night.
In my case , it started with a headache. Of course, a headache comes in the gift pack of parenthood. But you pop a Nurofen, keep calm and carry on. Except, this time, the pill didn’t help. By the next day, there was no doubt in my mind. You know that feeling just before you get the flu and you can feel something brewing in your body and it’s a matter of time? It was like that, except it didn’t feel familiar. It was as if a truly strange new invader had entered my body, and I had no idea what would happen next.
My younger daughter began vomiting. She vomited and vomited and vomited. She is a petite 12-year-old and I have never seen so much liquid come out of one person’s body. She was terrified – she kept telling me she couldn’t breathe and I could see she was inhaling some of what was coming out.
That night, as I fell asleep alone in a room that felt like eight thousand miles away from my husband, I kept saying to myself: “It is going to be OK. Most people have a very mild form of the disease. Just breathe.”And before I go into the gory details, I want to say that my beloved family and friends are absent from this narrative. Not because they weren’t there for me, but because they were, in the biggest way possible.
Then there were the days when I felt as if my body was made of lead. Lifting limbs seemed impossible, walking to the toilet a long trek. It felt like each sore muscle was competing for attention.One afternoon, I felt like something was rolled up under the top of my arm as I lay on my side. I lifted myself and searched the blankets. Nothing. Then I touched the top of my arm and it felt like a line of bruising all the way down the top. I searched for a bruise. Nothing.
The last part of each breath produced a feeling of sponginess in my lungs, and I’d feel dizzy. At that time, the oximeter was my lifesaver. That poor little machine was working round the clock, especially on the nights I lay wide awake too terrified to let sleep take me.
My husband also got sick during the course of my illness, by the way, but he had a much milder reaction and carried on being my stalwart, carer and friend. Our two daughters kept the sounds of cheer going in the house. I stopped being angry with them for watching too much television or eating Nutella straight from the jar. They were the sunflowers that brightened up the home.
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