Covid-19, 20,21, … Our Tryst

I’m recounting my experience with covid so that people will get aware of this malady if they unfortunately face this fact. There is a wide range of symptoms which people report, pre covid, during covid, and post covid. I hope what I recount will aid others to get aware and be on a look out, for themselves, for their loved ones and for their relatives and friends.

Towards the end of June last year, 2020 I was hit by covid. Prior to this, I had the following symptoms;

Loose motions with froth or foam-like substance which accompanied the stool. The usual/normal motion takes time and effort (and leisure) but a covid-shit takes no time. It’s shit-in-a-minute. Meaning, I used to go, sit on the pot and baam! It’s over. All clear. The look of the stool was like Goats droppings with shampoo or soap froth. You know what I mean.
Another symptom was, my tailbone, the butt on which I sit, started to ache a few weeks prior to my diagnosis. I’ve been sitting cross legged since childhood, and since May 2017, I’ve become a regular butt-sitter. My bed is my regular work place where I sit or sleep, as I desire. I was never afflicted with Tailbone pain before and after covid, but the weeks leading up to my final “fall,” I had tremendous discomfort in that region. I cursed myself for never having a regular work table, etc., etc.. Here is another one recounting similar happenings.
The third symptoms, which initially I blamed on my obesity and lack of exercise, was my complete and utter exhaustion. If I even walked up to my toilet and peed and came back, I used to lie down with total tiredness.
Then finally, I developed a fever and and I used to have two paracetamol 500 tabs ever two hours just to keep the fever below 103 deg and to 99 or 100. I finished all Crocin whatever was lying at home, got my sister to get stock from her house, finished that too, then my sister went out to get some more and finished that too. Finally, due to COVID warnings or whatever, the medical shop started refusing to sell paracetamol without any covid negative test report. The medicine was finally procured from elsewhere but by that time everyone in the house knew that there was something wrong with me. No one, not even me, suspected covid.

I was suspected of Dengue. The reason being; since 24th March 2020 till my final fall to COVID in last week of June 2020, I may be the only person in this world to have followed the covid protocol strictly. I never stepped a foot outside the house. I don’t even remember opening the main door. Seclusion and solitary confinement is no problem to me and here I can beat Nelson Mandela. After few days of Dengue tests, I finally took the covid test and within two days thereafter, I was honored with covid Positive report.

Also, along with covid test, my doctor advised me to also take HRCT (High-resolution computed tomography). The LINK HERE is my report and this will give an idea as to the destruction this virus can wreak on a human body. No wonder I used to get extremely tired walking just a few steps. I’ve had breathing problems since birth and being allergic to many things, I was adviced hospitalization, just to have the oxygen handy, if need be.

5. In the hospital I had two strange occurrence.

a. The calf muscle on my right feet suddenly developed pain, and the pain travelled up and down the calf muscle. I just couldn’t make out what could have triggered this “cramp” as I was prone on the hospital bed most of the time watching non-stop Hindi movie songs. At home, I never see these but in the hospital, there was no Netflix. I heard this song so many times, that it became my favorite. Particularly the dance.

Then those medicines started coming in and I was surprised that corona had medicines. Most of them were Vit C, Vit D, anti Acid – but one of them was called – “Clopilet.” Armed with my iPad, which is my another appendage, I google the medicine and found that it’s a sort of “blood thinner.” And later, it may have been instrumental is curing my right calf muscle cramp. Now, I can say, I did have a blood clot and I was fortunate to have been attended to.

b. Around the same time, in the hospital, a largish circular “Goosebump” kind of a Skin Eruption occurred on the back side of my right thigh. It was not painful in the beginning. Over the course of next three to four months, that skin-eruption developed into a pussy boil with no discernable “head.” Gradually it subsided.

When I was in the hospital, my father, mother and sister all were diagnosed covid positive but they were all asymptomatic and quarantined at home. After the quarantine period, our family doctor advised “Venous Doppler” tests on both limbs to all. This was to find any blood clot which may develop as a result of covid and which can travel to the brain or heart and cause fatality.

Thus the malady. Hope this helps, to be aware of the things that may happen, leading to, during and after covid.

In my opinion, the covid test is just an indication. The damage the virus does can be determined by HRCT and “Venous Doppler” tests and also the use of “Blood Thinners.”

HRCT saved me as I became aware of my lung deterioration which made me go to the hospital prior to emergency. In the hospital, I was never on oxygen but my room had oxygen saturation increased.

The “Blood Thinner” was a boon to me inadvertently. Had I not being hospitalised, I wouldn’t have known or taken this medicine.

Post covid, Venous Doppler is important, just to be safe and not let a grain of blood clot which if undiagnosed and untreated, may travel from limbs to the heart and brain. If it doesn’t cause death, it may cause something more disastrous – paralysis.