A reminder of our mortality: COVID

25.04.21
New Delhi, India

“Cylinders are over. We have to import. Beg, borrow, steal — get the damn oxygen!” shouted a news reporter on TV.

I look at my phone, and I see 5 unread messages and 2 missed calls. As I am trying to read my messages, I get another call from a friend. He needs help with getting a Remdesivir prescription for his uncle in Gujarat. It seems all the missed messages and calls are for a similar ask, a plea for help to find oxygen cylinders, Remdesivir injections or some critical medication.

Struck by COVID, my grandma is still bedridden. Her patience is starting to run out. She’s been isolated for over 10 days now. Isolation during sickness must be extremely painful. The only companion she’s had lately is her TV. And it’s time for her daily injections to thin out the blood since the dreaded D Dimer report indicating blood clotting has come out high.

At this point, I don’t feel anything. A feeling of deep grief because of this never-ending disease across the city has now normalized within me. We’re grateful that we’ve got multiple hands to manage the essential items. My parents, grandma and I are at least all together. Thankfully, we were able to coordinate the medicines. We acted early enough to get the RT-PCR tests for all of us. I am just grateful to the almighty.

It’s confusing though. We all had the symptoms, but only my grandma tested positive. I had a runny nose and nosebleed for over a week. My father had fever for 2 days and continues to have body ache. My mother was feeling nauseous and had severe headaches for multiple days. Whether it was the news around or the actual disease that got us sick is unknown, but we’re not alone in this state. It’s just that the times are such.

My father’s cousin, a physician, has been a great support, prescribing tests and medication for my grandma, but even he doesn’t have access to RT-PCR or other blood tests.

Funnily enough, the water pump in our house decided to give up today, and we don’t have water. Well, yet another thing going wrong? No big deal. That’s not an issue.

Anyway, it’s time to get back to the war zone. Enough of thinking, it’s time for action, yet again.

I don’t express my deep inner thoughts usually, but I wanted to share this after 2 years as a reminder of the fragility of the world we live in. There’s a lot of work we need to collectively do. I’m confident that we’ve got this though…