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illness
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2020-03-24
When COVID Started.
A journal that was written on 03/24/2020, my Senior year of Highschool, when schools closed. Beginning of qurantine and a shift of my mental health. -
2021-01-25
My Covid-19 Reflection
I caught COVID-19 in January 2021 after being around a family member who was positive. The trail of transmission could’ve been my aunt to my cousins to my mother then to me and my brother but it is still unclear. I firstly got a headache one night then went to bed. I woke and felt my throat feeling tight and dry and had a very bad headache, with congestion, fever and body aches/pain all over. I did not want to eat, just wanted to stay in bed and sleep. It was very difficult because it was also my brother and mother who were sick with the virus as well. I tried to make as many herbal remedies as possible for me and my family. I made teas that helped expel mucus from the lungs and throat as well as garlic, honey, elderberry, zinc and vitamin C, B-12 & D. The first two days that I was sick, my fever was over 100 degrees and I had to take Ibuprofen. To help with my body pains I tried to stay out of the bed and keep my body moving. I lost a lot of weight from not eating as much and my body working hard and using energy to recover. What was very interesting about this experience was that I would feel empty even after I ate food. This strange feeling lasted few days after my COVID symptoms were over. It was discouraging because I got my regular appetite back and could not smell or taste at 100%. Everything tasted very plain no matter the amount of flavor. During this experience I was not very worried. I just knew I would get better quickly and remained positive. -
2020-12-01
Senior Year mixed with Covid-19
In 2020, I was a senior in high school receiving my high school diploma and my associates degree. I worked so hard for 4 years, taking so many college courses and pushing myself so hard at a young age to get both degrees. I was very upset when I had my senior year taken away from me. It was like I didn't know what hit me. March 13, 2020 was any normal day until we find out that was the last day of high school and seeing our friends for a while. I still tried to make the best out of the situation. My year was ruined and to top it all off I couldn't even enjoy time with my friends due to lockdown. Up until the summer if 2020, everyone was very cautious, but then people acted like the outbreak didn't exist. Sadly, I fell under that category of people. My friends and I decided that a good way to celebrate graduation would be going on vacation to Mexico. Of course with my luck guess what gift I came back to NYC with? YUP, covid! I'm not going to lie it was the scariest days of my life. I never took anything so seriously until after I had it. I was apart of the lucky people who had slim to none symptoms and only for 2 weeks. Ever since then I have been extremely cautious and paranoid of getting sick again, even going to the supermarket I'm paranoid. This was covid-19 experience so far and hopefully epidemiologists can put an end to this outbreak soon. -
2020-03-17
2020 Pandemic
I was exposed to the Coronavirus almost immediately after the initial outbreak. I was already feeling sick in the middle of March. I felt a constant throbbing in my throat, sometimes I would wake up to a burning feeling in my lungs and felt pressure as though someone was standing on top of my chest. The first two weeks straight, I went from freezing cold to burning hot every few minutes, accompanied by a constant throbbing headache. The most menial of tasks would cause shortness of breath and my heart to pump excessively. I honestly felt I was going to die. After about a month, my breathing became less labored. In three months, I felt I recovered enough to start exercising again. By exercise, I mean the ability to walk a few blocks without having the wind knocked out of me. I began checking in with my family and found out that I had lost over 30 family members in Ecuador. I also lost a coworker, who was one of the kindest people you could meet and who was loved by her students. The amount of horrible and depressing individual stories of my family dying are too much to repeat, so I will say if there was ever a living nightmare, it was experienced by them. If I could describe what living through hell is like, I would say that it is the last six months of my life. Americans, as a whole, could have done better. To the people who have pretended that nothing is wrong, you deserve everything that is coming to you and I have absolutely no pity. -
2020-03-10
Full plate Spilled: Essential Healthcare in a Pandemic
I've lived in New York for 5 years, moving at 18 and worked my way up to feeling at home here. I'm a full spectrum doula ( a non-medical birth support coach), a public health student, and healthcare worker. Right before the pandemic I was very busy. I had a birth client who was also my friend who gave birth on Tuesday, March 10th. That was the day the South Brooklyn Maimonides Hospital had it's first two Covid patients. I was kicked out that evening as were all non-birth parents in the maternity ward which was heartbreaking as my client had a difficult pregnancy and a c-section earlier that day. I was the only person allowed in the operating room while the baby was born. On Friday is when everything changed as the pandemic was announced when the baby was 3 days old. My last good moments before quarantine was holding the newborn daughter of my client, reading the news on the TV while my client slept. I was worried about what would happen to them and for my own health as I have health conditions that put me at risk for worse outcomes. I work my main job as a HIV prevention and HIV treatment navigator at a major health clinic conglomerate. We had stopped all in person appointments the following week on March 16th, but it was too late, in our 14 clinics we had 2 co-workers die from Covid-19. In my clinic alone there were 11 cases within our staff. I got sick on March 21st, and had what was diagnosed as pneumonia (although my doctor believes it was covid that hid in my lungs and was not detected by tests.) I couldn't breathe most nights and while quarantined at my friend's two bedroom apartment I found my fingers and toes turning blue and had a fever of 102 for over a week. My job was in chaos, half staff people working from home, and all essential staff coming in to report in person. Just two weeks after getting ill and still recovering from pneumonia I had to return to do in person care at the peak of NYs Covid-19 first wave. Due to a loss in funding we did not and still do not receive any hazard pay to come in. In my first two weeks back, my godfather's healthy mother died of covid, my high school best friend's mother Carolyn died of covid on March 28th and on April 6th her brother Thomas died on his 30th birthday. By May 1st I was still going to work every day and had lost 8 people in my life to Covid-19, such a high number that I still haven't come to terms with. I have recovered from my pneumonia and thankfully have now tested negative for covid 5 times since March, however the fear is still there if I were to get it from my in person patients. I had to stop doing doula work, which is a passion of mine. However there have been some positives to make things a little easier. I became a godmother. My client's baby is 6 months old and thriving. I'm fortunate to be employed during a time of such financial upheaval. I am also fortunate enough to be in therapy for my mental health which has suffered during this time. I hope this pandemic ends soon and wish no one will have to endure what I've had to go through.