So, here I am sipping a coffee in the winter morning sun after recovering from Covid-19. Alhamdulillah. 
It’s been a nightmare. And it all still feels surreal. I completed my final day at M&G and began an intensive immunosuppressive treatment for my recently diagnosed autoimmune disease so I was meant to self-isolate anyway. My mum had administered the treatment to me.
The next day, we got a call that changed our lives. My cousin had tested positive for Covid-19. We had been in contact with her. It felt wrong. It couldn’t possibly be. But we all went for tests.
That night I struggled to breathe. I felt horrible. My brother encouraged me, suggesting it was just the side effects of my treatment I was feeling.
At 4AM the next morning, my phone beeped with a text message. I had tested positive. I went to my parents. I checked my dad’s phone, he was negative. My mum was positive. And so our lives were upended.
Though my symptoms were moderate, it was still the most ill I have ever felt. And I was not alone. More than 10 people in my extended family tested positive at the same time.
Our home is currently being sanitised. But even as I sit here, grateful to have recovered, my mother is on a ventilator at Milpark. My brother is hospitalised with pneumonia. The experience has been grueling. And it’s not yet over for our family.
I also have an aunt on the ventilator. And another still fighting off the worst of the virus in ICU. Our hearts are heavy with worry. But also filled with love.
I had a fantastic team of doctors and nurses looking after me. Tracking my symptoms, and just making sure I was okay.
But even as I sat isolated in my bedroom for two weeks with no human contact, I was surrounded by the love of my family and friends. And beyond the silly rumours of my family being thrown around, it is the love that we feel most.
So, compassion. Let’s not forget to respond with compassion to each other in this awful time.
So, what helped? Love, care, kind words, laughter. And the medicine? My doctor joked that he was sounding like a homeopath but the treatment regimen was steam inhalation, zinc, vitamin c, black seed oil capsules and at least 15 minutes of direct sunlight.
I am angry that some people continue to think of Covid-19 as ‘overhyped’, ‘a media myth’. When you have to watch your mother struggling to breathe you only feel the heaviness of its reality. So please take care. And be kind especially to those fighting this awful thing.
Also breathing exercises.
