My mom tested COVID-positive on April 23 so I thought to get tested as well. I tried speaking to testing labs but nobody was ready to visit my home for a test.
After trying for two days I got my test done on April 25 and was COVID positive as well. It was really shocking as we didn’t expect this to happen to us. My mom got her vaccination done and right after that she tested positive
I follow social media very actively and almost everyone was posting things related to Covid and every minute my mobile’s notification was related to it only, which made me depressed.
I started overthinking on everything which actually took me to the stage of a breakdown as I had no one to share these feelings with and had to take care of my family as well.
Earlier, I had a severe chest pain and headache, which I thought was not related to Covid and I took it very lightly. It continued till 2-3 days and I still ignored it.
However, I got fever next morning and lost my sense of smell and taste. My headache was so bad that I had tears in my eyes all the while and I was like an insomniac.
Throat pain felt like as if someone is holding my neck hard and not letting me breathe. I had a scratchy throat, and a fever, with this sweeping kind of fatigue. Also, I lost almost 5-6kgs in a week.
I haven’t realized where time went as, in this condition I have cooked food for my family, I have done dishes, mopping, washing and all the household work as we sent back our servants so that they can stay safe. I would wake up around 8 a.m. in the morning and then till 10pm at night I had to take care of my family and myself single-handedly.
Somehow I managed to do meditation daily just to calm myself and ignore the negative thoughts running in my head all the time. I also used to watch a lot of videos related to covid before sleeping on how to get the sense of smell and taste back.
I truly believe that god has been with me in this and gave me a lot of will power to fight against covid alone.
After I got to know that I am positive, I took the regular medicines suggested by my doctor, which includes an antibiotic, Zinc, and multivitamins. I had a lot of pain in my chest due to cough so I took steam thrice a day which gave me some relief.
I believe, 40 per cent of the people are losing their minds by watching negativity going around in the world and I am one of them.
However, I have learned that you can fight every battle alone with a weapon called will power, and that talking to and encouraging yourself helps you on your way to recover.
And perhaps most importantly, don’t let negative thoughts rent space in your head. Mask your ears and eyes from negative messages.
Manvika Sagar is a communications specialist based in New Delhi - As told to Shantanu David