What you may not know about suffering from this bizarre virus is endless. The strangest thing is that you most likely won’t know that you have it until you get tested. You think this is common knowledge, right? Not exactly, it isn’t, otherwise, people (especially medics) who look at COVID patients like a self-made ticking time bomb would know better. It has a ridiculous way of robbing control of your own body. It betrays you. You constantly feel drained, cold—very cold, confused and even hung-over, all at the same time. The fear of sleeping while wondering if you’ll wake up is real. I thought about this severally and all I told God was, ‘Please God, don’t do this. My family has been through enough already.’ The last time I had actively thought about ‘smell’ as a sense was probably in my lower primary school where we sang the rhyme, ‘Our five senses’. If you went to a polite school like me, you should know this song. The other time is undoubtedly when my boyfriend says things like, ‘oh I smell so good’, lol. His vanity is deeply buried into his numerous colognes (and that’s okay, smelling good adds to his charm). But the point is, you get absolutely shocked when you wake up one day only to realise you can’t smell the previously craved Ballistic burger and fries. The horror! Food feels like metal in your mouth. Luckily, I had a few friends dropping off sacks of fruit while I self-quarantined so, fruit salad became my feast meal. The fruits, I could at least imagine the smell. Can you imagine if God decided that you have smelt enough and this is a new chapter where you won’t be able to smell or appreciate people’s colognes! That would be a dark era and I am so grateful for healing. Having COVID is a sad period, though. The realisation that you can’t step out of the house just sucks. You feel like a prisoner, a responsible prisoner, though. Your friends are literally scared of you. Even though at some point your body wakes up from this slumber, whoever got to know still looks at you cross-eyed. It’s ridiculous. A friend of mine told me that after testing positive, the medics couldn’t let her sleep on the beds, so she had to set her trembling self on a wooden little bench until her husband arrived to take her home. Now, this is a plus-sized lady, a mother of three, balancing her shaken, cold self on a little bench. It seems we got enough information on COVID but we might have forgotten to treat the patients with empathy along the way. What is comfortable about COVID anyway? It simply makes life sour. Traveling is so expensive, tests are as painful as they are intrusive, and the stadium is cold. I won’t even talk about the trauma that comes after the illness. Going to test post-COVID sufferance is like waiting to hear if your name will be read among those that made heaven. Your heart beats when the doctor calls your name to announce the results, and in the case of a PCR test, you barely sleep until the SMS from RBC pops on your screen, proclaiming you negative of the virus! The joy that comes after that, only a COVID survivor can understand. When I recently traveled, I was so damaged that each time I saw someone at the airport dressed in COVID Personal Protective Gear (PPE), my heart skipped and I automatically pictured myself at the back of an ambulance, being taken to the isolation centre. Boy, was I fast to show them my negative results! More to this misery, is that people get different longer-term effects. For instance, I had this crazy but subtle rash on my forehead since the episode, as if to remind me of my ‘shame’ each time I look in the mirror. I have heard that for a few people, ‘COVID brain’ strikes! You tend to quickly forget the easiest things like switching off the water heater, blanking on where your access card to work is on several occasions, and forgetting meetings. It is scary because you would never know how long these unwanted conditions will linger around. When some friends got to know that I would be traveling, they told me (out of concern) to please stay away from COVID and come back safe. Now, much as I appreciated this, I found it totally hilarious. People make COVID sound like a big green virus that we can see with our bare eyes ready to chase and catch you if you are not a good girl. On the contrary, this is the most unpredictable virus that hits hard without warning. So you may not be able to necessarily ‘stay away from COVID’ but please keep a mask on at all times. Trust no one when it comes to this. Also, invest in your own hand sanitizer and keep your distance. This last part, though, might be the only comfortable thing that came with COVID. Previously, it just felt like people knew nothing about personal space. Someone would speak in your face like you share a bed at home, and I am so glad that this part is dying out. Almost as excited as I am about not shaking hands anymore. You really don’t need to shake my hand to know whether I am having a good morning. Anyway, good people, before I trail off, stay safe, wear (and wash) your masks, and A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME BECAUSE YES, I BEAT COVID!! The author is Rwanda’s first female saxophonist. stellatush@gmail.com
