STILL WINNING
A bloody nose, fevers, chills, body aches and night sweats — cricketer Solomzi Nqweni experienced it all.
“Take different types of common colds and combine them. That’s what it felt like.”
Nqweni’s journey to beating Covid-19 was a particularly important one, having been diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), a rare autoimmune disorder, last year, placing him in the high-risk category.
But on Friday he received the news he had so desperately yearned for — he had fully recovered from the coronavirus.
For Nqweni, 26, a former Warriors cricket player, the road to recovery was by no means an easy one.
From fevers in the first week to becoming desperately ill the next, Nqweni said the virus hit him like a ton of bricks.
“I was very, very sick. I had cold chills the one minute and hot flushes the next.
“My head throbbed and my nose would bleed constantly.”
Eventually, his entire body was covered in a fine rash.
“My eyes became sore and I developed mouth ulcers.”
He was unable to eat most foods as a result and everything had to be blended.
“Fortunately, I didn’t have to be hospitalised.
“I was so afraid of going back on a ventilator,” he said.
The Grey High School matriculant said battling the coronavirus had triggered the emotions he had gone through when he was first admitted to hospital for GBS.
Nqweni had gone into selfisolation at home and was told to contact the hospital should he have difficulty breathing.
By last week, the symptoms had subsided and he was no longer experiencing night sweats — one of the last symptoms to linger.
“I felt very confident that I had recovered and decided to go for the retest.”
A few days later, Nqweni was told that Covid-19 was yet another thing he had hit out of the park.