Our Journey To, Through & Return From Corona Infection - Part 2

 

Having started on identical medication was the easiest part. The difficult part was to understand the beast inside us and how to tame it by various means. Fortunately, one of our cousins (son of my step-aunt who succumbed to the dreaded virus) who had gone through this path of Covid, came to the rescue and suggested that we contact a certain Doctor who was treating him and his whole family. 

This doctor has been serving the Covid affected patients since the onset of the pandemic and is, therefore, terribly busy. Despite his hectic schedule of more than 18 hours a day, the doctor called me promptly late in the night on 24^th to set the course of the next regime of medication. 

Before that, he advised us to have the blood test done for certain parameters and we contacted his attached path lab’s technician who came home and collected the blood samples. The same evening, the results of the blood tests came through and medication was tweaked to combat the beast of the virus, inside us.

What appeared initially, as excessive medication, what with a host of tabs and blood thinner jabs for the first five days, set the path for our recovery from this dreadful virus.

We just followed the Doctor’s advice and for the first time around, we went out in the open, on 27^th April, to get our Chest X-Rays taken. We zeroed in on a nearby facility which served Covid patients in getting their Pathology, Radiology, CT Scans and other procedures done under pristine conditions.

This done, we requested the Radiologist at the facility to give us the X-Rays in soft copy so that we can send them over to the Doctor. She obliged and we flagged the photograph of our chest X-Rays to the Doctor over WhatsApp, pronto!

Thanks a lot for your help in such times of need, Ms. Radiologist!

Doctor advised us that there is an infection leading to Pneumonia, in my case and in my brother’s case, it is clear with no infection. Reports that came from the facility, a tad later, confirmed what the Doctor had already advised us.  

He also told me “Not to worry as it is mild stages and the medication advised, if taken in proper doses, would clear of all the infections”. 

Proper doses, it is, then!

We were advised to administer injections of blood thinners (for 5 days) along with a host of tablets to be taken. Jabs! I (we) had never done that in our lives. It was pretty scary but the lab technician encouraged us and showed us the process to inject each other, albeit a simple one but to date we had only seen doctors and nurses do it and some who were injecting insulin themselves. But for us, it was new learning. We had no option but to inject ourselves and this too was done and dusted. 

I am sure I must have gotten over the worst by now, as we entered day 6 post-change in the medication regimen.

The doctor also suggested the second round of blood tests and the ever pleasant lab technician came down to scoop the samples for the second blood test. We got the results on the same day and the Doctor prescribed us a change in our medication regimen, again, to complement the needs based on the second blood test results. No jabs this time, it is only pills popping, thankfully, a combination of blood thinners, vitamin supplements, steroids, et al.

Just common sense here. We felt terribly hungry from day 4/5 onwards and were told that the systems are slowly kicking back to normal as the liver and other vital organs have started functioning.

All the while we were advised to keep ourselves hydrated, take steam inhalation, keep our mind calm, perform some breathing exercises and some physical activity (walk in the house itself) which, we have been religiously executing.

While my brother had been active and doing the physical exercises right from day 1 of isolation, I was a tad lazy. The illness provided me with a perfect smokescreen to excuse myself from the rigours of physical exercises.

I was a bit worried too, about the physical exercises as my habit of walking 6 km/day has been hibernating since the onset of the pandemic. However, with no other option in sight, I started off walking at home and in the first two days, I was able to reach only 30-50% of my daily targets. With determination to break the shackles of mediocrity, I decided to put in more effort in notching at least 60-70% of my earlier target. It was a great relief for me when I started touching 85-90% of my target and finally, I did overhaul my target today. All the while, I was thinking that I should be good enough if I can even touch 60% of my target. 

Some positives of positive thinking here!

A good couple of medication ended this morning but the concoction of Steroids, Vitamin Supplements and Blood Thinner still continue to be the regime.

Despite her hectic schedule, My sister-in-law (being HoD of a section at her IT Institution), has been relentlessly cooking hot food, not just for the both of us but to the other family members holed up in her place, as well. My sincere gratitude to her for providing us with delicious and hot food, twice a day.

My other younger brothers who have, as always, risen to the occasion in doing the running around to hunt the medicines and also in delivering us food thrice a day, in addition to odd requirements on an impromptu basis. My sincere gratitude to them too. 

To be continued……..