The Sunday News
Noel Munzabwa
EVER since the late Whitney Houston’s award winning Waiting to Exhale song faded into near oblivion, it had never crossed my mind that one day the bout of Covid-19 would land me in a 15-day wait to exhale again.
Fear struck, the plunge into the unknown had engulfed me into almost submissively writing my will. And that the Covid-19 statistics had fast turned into names we know further poured cold into one’s feet. One had to go through the scary “waiting to exhale” moment.
It all began on a Wednesday, 20 January 2021 when symptoms pushed me into booking a test whose inevitable positive result came as no surprise to me. At 86% oxygen saturation, struggling for a stable breath and a candidate for hospital admission, the announcement that there were no beds available for admission sounded a deathly sentence passed in a court of law but such was the sad reality of the second wave.
After being attended to, the cab thankfully obliged to come and take me home. But further deterioration awaited me barely 48 hours later. Working to strengthen my wife Gugulezwe who felt like she was feeding me for the last time initially sounded very positive but little did I realise that hospitalisation later on that day would open a plethora of imaginations and obviously death or life stood firmly anchored in both our minds.
Just before 5pm on Friday, 22 January 2021 I called in at Lubombo Referral Hospital in Siteki, Swaziland (where I am based) for admission from home care with a deteriorated SPO2 (peripheral capillary oxygen saturation, an estimate of the amount of oxygen in the blood) now at 82%, hospital admission inevitable, severe headache accompanied by fatigue and all necessary protocols dutifully attended to.
To me I had literally now been swallowed away by the walls where some walked in and won the battle, while some lost the battle. And hundreds were in arranged wards still going through the battle and my prayer was to get a ward mate that would give a positive attitude to my battle.
Yes, the “feed me for the last time” played a dance around together in a little circle like a whirlwind in mind as it ghosted back the death possibility and how psychologically traumatic it could possibly be interpreted and I could easily pluck it out from my wife’s reluctantly drawn goodbye wave.
For a moment even the popular “parting is such a sweet sorrow” isolated somewhere William Shakespeare’s love tragedy Romeo and Juliet sounded louder and painful. I was entering a zone where thousands do not win their battle and I had to try and plug myself to the survivor’s team.
As she waved goodbye with a forced smile probably a thousand thoughts that possibly, this had potential doses of probably being the last ever meeting of the two lovebirds, inevitably crossed each of our minds but we anchored our minds on hope.
We both told ourselves we will cross the bridge when we get there. Grudgingly and painfully it was me, my small bag of toiletries and a few clothing being swallowed away by the hollow into the wards. Admission became inevitable, oxygen support became an almost fortnight friend, the huge 24-litre Mantengwane Cylinder was gently ploughed next to me with cool flow from the tube connected via nose quietly shutting the feel of the natural lung inhale and exhale.
The oxygen tank had thus become my bedside mate such that at the end of the term I had been trained how to switch from one to the other when it drains empty in the quiet of the night — inevitably scary enough experience — a very sharp contrast to the theorists “don’t be scared” mantra.
We have read and heard of critically dwindling oxygen supply, surely shouldn’t that on its own have been another substantiated reason to run scared. Having struggled with shortness of breath due to an acute pneumonia that had silently sneaked in and embedded itself to the lower lobes of both lungs, just the sight of the chest X-ray simply cut how much hope I needed to put in but that couldn’t be enough to drive out the fear for the worst.
Almost emancipated, even the 50-metre walk to the X-ray department seemed an energy sapping mile and being plugged to the oxygen support for over two weeks meant one wouldn’t really feel his own, lungs. The battle lines for survival had been drawn.
Just the gory imagination that some had really walked into admission still stable, but lost the battle, against all optimism, pockets of hope, the fear for the worst lingered on and the first three nights turned out nightmarish.
Being swallowed into the hollows of the gigantic hospital leaving behind my loved ones who could have been equally Covid-19 positive but luckily asymptomatic exacerbated fear to another level.
And yet there was this scary question on possible source of infection which without an answer ran its own parallel lap of honour, frustrating any imagination and it turned out even the old lady we went to the X-ray department with was equally bothered.
That my body temperature ran a normal range around 36 degrees Celsius despite being symptomatic and probably highly infectious equally sacred my imagination. Could it have been from the retail supermarkets — I began to tick and untick the boxes. Walking into a busy retail supermarket and drawing an acceptable body temperature from the thermometer beep has more than become a self conviction that one is negative to Covid-19 but my own personal experience and observation could change it all.
For many, this routine supermarket entry screening proudly conducted by security has no doubt been taken as the nearest possible presumptive Covid-19 negative. My personal experience will however, probably attract brickbats from authorities.
And when it dawned on me that I had become symptomatic and probably highly infective at the hospital screening station I expected a red flagging thermometer scanner reading, but alas it was 36.2 degrees Celsius.
A green sticker permitting me accessibility to literally all hospital points (as need arises) was patched on me, but as a quite reasonable health care professional, screening was merely a protocol to be fulfilled but what was on me needed caution to protect the next person.
And by the time I received my confirmatory Covid-19 positive result it was reflection time, a sad reality that consistently haunted me throughout my 17 days of hospitalization in which my body temperature remained normal.
It haunts my inner soul how many more symptomatic and highly infectious people are being cleared by these guns at entry points of public places leaving us with a rather false comfort when it could be another breeding death trap worth revisiting.
Such is the sad reality I just couldn’t deal with while confined to the hospital bed and soon enough I had to deal with loss of taste and appetite and worse still any attempt to move would attract a nasty cough. I had to be in that vegetative state sunken in that hospital bed most probably waiting to submit to any fate at that juncture, I just didn’t know what to expect anymore and the now stabilizing oxygen saturation breathed a bit of hope.
However, each day that passed by while still plugged to the oxygen added fresh dependency worry and I began to prepare myself for potential prolonged withdrawal and questioned the possibility of my own lungs returning to full function ever again.
Indeed, time became a true prophet, the oxygen withdrawal became no easier a task, the oxygen saturation began to play the instability games and several times at that stage had to be interchangeably switched between the oxygen mask and nasal prongs – was I just about to complicate became the new fear.
At least at that stage, feeding had returned to normal but I had to carefully manage the edge for the toilet and being confined to the hospital bed which meant even the volume of fluids but yes, I was now beginning to feel my life returning again.
Finally, on day 15, the doctor finally managed to totally withdraw the oxygen support, I began to feel my own lungs inhale and exhale and the balloon blowing exercises became essential to enhance the lung capacity functionality.
Despite the withdrawal, one still has to do a lot of speech exercises to return to smooth speech flow but for now we celebrate winning the battle from the jaws of potential death.
The writer is a Zimbabwean journalist and health worker based in Swaziland. – @NoelMunzabwa
