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It was the same usual day for me. I got up with the mindset of getting ready fast and going to the hospital. Let me tell you, I am a Doctor and have been working with Covid patients from the past 1 year or so. I first decided to check all WhatsApp messages on my phone. All the hospital groups were flooded with the messages stating that this patient is admitted, this patient is discharged, this patient is critical, this patient is not able to maintain oxygen level, this patient is gasping, CPR has started for this patient so inform attender, this patient is certified (Dead), and many other similar daily updates about the patients.
Although it was a normal day for me, not that I have become insensitive towards such messages, however, I had accepted the harsh reality of this entire disease process. Anyway, today I was feeling something strange, something different. I kind of ignored the feeling and started getting ready as I was already getting calls from the hospital.
I took my 3.5-year-old daughter in my lap, kissed her, and said goodbye to her by reassuring her that mumma will come back soon and play with her. She happily said goodbye to me as this was also a routine for my highly cooperative and understanding daughter. On driving my car to the hospital, I spoke to my parents about their well-being and reached the hospital with that strange feeling not leaving me in spite of my constant efforts to ignore it.
I still managed to finish my hospital routine work and finally sat in my chamber realizing that I am having fever and weakness. I immediately called my technician and asked him to do a rapid antigen test for COVID-19. Finally, I got the answers to all my strange feelings that I was having since morning. “Bakra kab tak khair manayega…” Yes, I was COVID positive.
I immediately informed the authorities in the hospital and applied for leave. Although the supervisor gave me leave, he looked at me with a stingy smile as if another wicket had fallen. As if he was thinking in his mind, who will work in her place? Who will replace her duty? It seemed like he was worried as there was already a huge shortage of manpower in the hospital.
I realized I still had that strange feeling and kind of trembles with so many questions arising in my mind, like how will I manage home as we were not calling any maids. How will my daughter stay without me? Is it possible that I might have already given the infection to my daughter and husband? Who will take care of my mother-in-law who is a cancer survivor, my father-in-law who is old with co-morbidities, and most importantly, my husband’s grandmother who is 88-years-old? My entire mind was spinning.
I asked my assistant to purchase medication for me, called my husband, and informed about the situation and asked him to arrange an isolation room for me. Thinking about the isolation room is so frightening for any mother having such a small child.
While driving back home, on the traffic signal, I checked WhatsApp and the single sentence from my husband relaxed me a bit stating, "I know you must be tense, don’t worry... Main sab sambhal lunga”.
I entered my house, without touching anything, looked at my daughter playing with her toys and straight away entered the isolation room. My daughter is so used to it, now she doesn’t run to me when I come back home.
She knows very well that “Mamma Corona ko maar kar aayi hai isliye pahle mumma will take bath and then play with me.”
She waited for me for long and could not wait further so asked her papa about me. He explained to her that mumma will come down soon, but let us have dinner first then we all will play together. None of us actually knew how to explain the situation to our daughter, so everyone in the family was making an extra effort to deviate my daughters mind from her mumma.
I was sitting alone in the frightening (as I had no one to talk to physically) isolation room thinking about my daughter. Both my daughter and husband finally came back to our bed room to settle down for the day. She again asked her papa about me. My poor husband still couldn’t find out a way to explain her anything so he said to her that let us give a video call to mumma and ask where she is.
Tring tring (Video call)
Me: Hello! Babu how are you?
My daughter: Mamma, why are you sitting in the guest room? Come to our room na, we will play together.
Me : Hmmm! Today you and papa sleep in our room okay. I will be sleeping in the guest room for a few days because I am having little fever and I don’t want you to get fever from me. You know na that if you get fever from me then you have to take those bitter medicines.
My daughter: Accha mamma... Dekhna aapko kahi Corona worona to nahi ho gaya? Aap apna dhyan rakhna mamma… Okay?”
And this sentence of hers made both me and my husband laugh our heart out.
With that sweet concern from my daughter, the frightening and suffocating isolation room suddenly changed to a beautiful guest room for me where I could sleep peacefully with good memories of my daughter.