Covid-19 ‘advisory’
DO not put your suffering or sickness to waste. Your greatest template on just how to conduct yourself both in health and in hardship and adversity is none other than Jesus Christ.
Is not our greatest learning and benefit as humanity all from Jesus’ pain, His agony, His rejection, His suffering? Look, our very salvation is from His crucifixion, His death and His blood! The good shepherd that laid his own life in the line of fire to protect his sheep. That there, must be our greatest example of love, of true leadership and how to make our own pain count and our affliction to be of benefit to others.
Of course, it would be absolutely ridiculous to suggest that my family ever endured any suffering remotely comparable to that of Jesus Christ. Blasphemous even!
Yet our brief experience with Covid-19, particularly at a moment when so many families out there are suffering so much, may be useful to some.
We have had some enquiries from affected friends and thought it may help to share our own experience. Like we long-feared, we are on our own here as citizens. A lot more people are dying than authorities care to count and to acknowledge. Everyone you spoke to in the past week lost someone very close this very week.
If some tips and learning could be drawn and used from our experience, we would feel we did not put our own little suffering to waste. Sharing information in a leadership and governance vacuum such as we are saddled with could save many lives.
The symptoms
I felt a sore throat, flue/fever symptoms and some queer dizziness from December 10, 2020 during, and after I mingled with a rather large group of people at a workshop.
It was in an enclosed space. Social distancing was not possible and we relied on masks. I had preferred a face shield to enable clearer face contact and voice projection. Two mics moved liberally across the room. We had tried to sanitise them continuously, but I am aware as the day wore on, less and less proper sanitising discipline happened.
True, there was nothing exemplary about such conduct and I was negligent. Don’t be.
Large gatherings, weddings, funerals, rallies, workshops are definite super-spreaders. Don’t risk it.
I took the usual painstop. I took lozenges, strepsil, and co-relief, med lemon, ginger and the concoctions we all take when attacked by a bout of flu. Nothing seemed to help.
Please don’t ignore or downplay the symptoms. Better err on the side of caution and hypochondria. I continued mingling with my family as usual and — except for myself — no one else felt any real symptom.
By December 14, 2020 my head felt heavy, clogged and I had continuous headaches. I had developed a significant cough. I was losing energy from the smallest of efforts. I had increasing feverish attacks. I had “inyongo”, my tongue felt heavy and increasingly tasteless. I had lost appetite and couldn’t quite smell. My eyes were every so often feeling sandy and itchy. I was developing a bloody diarrhoea. My breathing was erratic and my chest felt increasingly tight. Clearly, the usual co-relief and other flu remedies that I was accustomed to were not helping.
I asked to be taken to the doctor on December 16 and requested a test.
The doctor’s attitude was that with time, we must get used to the idea that every third person we encounter out there is probably infected and accordingly to protect ourselves and our loved ones. I insisted on the test.
Myself and my wife tested Covid-19 positive on the 16th. Do not wait for your partner and close associates to exhibit any symptoms once you are positive. Just test.
Ensure to get the whole family is tested
We sent the children in for testing the following day. The one who had been ever close to me, nursing me for that week, tested positive too. Happily, the others were negative.
My wife had no symptoms at all. My daughter then reported she had felt burning in her eyes and itchiness of the nose a couple of days before. On the day she tested she already had flu-like symptoms. It is good to get everyone tested as they could unknowingly spread the virus to siblings and to other people.
Many people out there are quietly nursing an unusually stubborn type of flu, holding out on prayer that it is not Covid-19. That is both dangerous and very irresponsible. You have nothing to lose, but a whole nation to save. Covid-19 is a condition that comes along with whatever other ailment you already carry. It reduces your body’s capacity to deal with ailments. It is not either Covid-19 or flu! Covid-19 will make your flu more complicated. Please do test, especially when someone in the family is showing symptoms of the virus.
The prescription
So, the doctor prescribed the following regimen of antibiotics and other medications...
1) Zinc;
2) Vitamin C;
3) Azthromycin; 4) Ciprofloxacillin; 5) Ceftriaxone injection.
All these were to boost our immune systems and protect our bodies from dealing with both the virus and the infections it could most likely cause.
Zinc and Vitamin C were for our immune system boost and CP Azithromycin is commonly used for bacterial respiratory infections, and could potentially treat or prevent co-infection with SARS-CoV-2. Medics say that Azithromycin could also have antiviral activity against some RNA viruses.
We don’t think it is enough to rely solely on our home remedies as is apparently the common practice out there.
The doctor also advised that if we had coughs we must feel free to use cough mixtures and other flue medication to assist us in the healing process.
In fact, it is rarely one malfunction that presents, but a family of ailments that take advantage of the compromised immunity of the body. Each demon needs to be targeted and attacked with its specific medication, all symptoms needed to be treated as they presented themselves.
We used the following ordinary remedies for treatment :
1. Strepsils for the throat;
2. Betapro for the cough;
3. Panado for general pain;
4. Aloe heat rub for the chest and head pain;
5. Core relief for flue;
6. Oral rehydration.
This thing hits the entire body real hard. Our bodies were almost always fatigued and with the medication it was easy to sleep much more than usual.
Rehydration: The doctor recommended intake of lots of juices and at least 2 litres of water daily for rehydration; we complied.
Rest: The doctor recommended lots of rest 8 to 10 hours/day and a least an hour / day of exposure to direct sunlight to enhance Vitamin D; we complied.
Fruits: The doctor recommended intake of lots of fruits, oranges, lemons, apples, avocado, bananas etc; we complied.
Hot meals: He also recommended that we eat regular balanced, hot meals and eat well, we did.
Isolate/sanitise
He advised us to deep clean and sanitise our living premises and to isolate the infected patients from the uninfected members of the family. Effectively to quarantine ourselves in a secluded part of the house for at least 14 days. We have had some talk of 10 days, but we were still feeling quite sick on day 10, and didn’t lose anything by doing 14 days; we complied.
Don’t share utilities
The doctor advised that we do not share rooms and utilities: toilets/ bathrooms / kitchen / utensils/ towels/ couches/ surfaces with the uninfected family members. We complied.
Traditional remedies
We also continued using the usual traditional remedies and concoctions of honey, ginger, lemon, garlic, mint, guava, gumtree etc. My daughter supplied us with some good Aloe Vera products that have proven very useful supplements. Some of these have been slotted into the permanent monthly grocery list.
Steaming/ukufutha
The simplest, the most accessible and perhaps the most effective remedy. We also exercised a lot of steaming, two times everyday using eucalyptus, vicks rub, gumtree and umsuzwane and guava leaves, lemon grass and mint.
This always gave us immediate relief and good, calm sleep. Besides, it has great benefits for the pores and silkiness of the skin. My beautiful girls are emerging twice as glowing smooth and beautiful as they were before infection!
Exercise
Covid-19 thrives when the body is continuously static and inactive. Yet you are feeling weak and ever exhausted. The doctor recommended that we do basic physical exercise around our quarantine zone: Walks, push ups, little dumbbell weights.
Prayer: The best medicine and the greatest doctor here is God. Faith and supplication played a great part to our recovery. Most of all, we prayed a lot. We also relied on family and church mates who also prayed with us and gave us moral support.
Inform family and friends
Everyone somehow feels as though there is something embarrassing or untoward about suffering this condition. This is very unfortunate. We noticed on informing others that many had undergone or were undergoing the same Covid-19 ordeal and thus we got a lot of love, support and advice from loved ones on what could assist us. It is very useful for this condition.
Positive thinking
Covid-19 is as much a dysfuction of internal organs as it is a disease of the mind. It plays with your mental fortitude. We had to consciously stay away from the depressing CNN statistics and other Covid-19 sad news. We happened to lose three close people to Covid-19 while we were ourselves struggling with breath. This can cook your brain to throw in the towel. You need to consciously keep positive thinking and practice a lot of good meditating. You need to keep only good, constructive and positive people around you. I deleted half my contacts and “lefted” several not-so-positive chat groups. You need people, but you need peace of mind more and only those people that bring value and always lift your spirits.
We have followed this strict regime of home-based medication and methods for some 20 days now. It was manageable and fairly inexpensive. We still feel weak somewhat as it is all truly draining. But,thank God, we feel we are over the hill now. We feel a whole lot stronger and healthier everyday.
We are aware, not only of how dangerous this virus has become in our community, especially in these past few weeks, but also of the fact that many have not made it, many are unaware of their status, many are none symptomatic, many are reluctant to test, but all do need some tips from those that have experienced it.
We really encourage everyone to de-stigmatise this condition, to stand up and test and protect themselves and their loved ones.
We feel this has helped us a lot as a family and we strongly recommend scaled-up vigilance allround: minimum movement and interaction, proper mask and social distancing discipline. We have deliberately made this very public as we believe it is the right thing to do. Covid-19 response structures must be way too overwhelmed by the ballooning cases to pretend any capacity to respond, to pin down the infected, and to trace contacts. The community must take active agency in our own families and localities as the cases mount.
We recommend the same procedures, herbs and medications for anyone and any family out there that may have cases of infection out there.
*Please note, none of us has any claim to medical acumen. We are lay citizens simply sharing our recent health experience. Thank you doctors T A Chikomo and B Matoro.
Thank you all. Stay safe, stay healthy and protect your loved ones. Happy holidays and a bright 2021 to everyone. We do hope this does help someone.
Zii Masiye (ziimasiye@ gmail.com) writes elsewhere on social media as Balancing