Our Corona Experience

The dreaded Corona finally sneaked into our household. All three of us, my wife Geeta, my mother and me were detected Corona positive. We chose to remain home quarantined and today is our last day of the 17 day quarantine. We are all in good health. This small writeup summarizes our experience in the hope that it would be useful to the readers.

Understand COVID Timeline – Person gets:
Exposed on day 0. Symptoms start day 5. Contagious from day 4-12
Test remains + from day 5->30 but patient not contagious after day 12

It was first August, and the lockdown was really wearing us down. We had not met anyone in the last 4 months. Rakhee was on 3^rd August. Every year, my sisters visit us to celebrate Rakhee, and this year too, we decided to celebrate as usual, to hell with Corona. I decided to invite my sisters and their husbands as we do every year. Initially Geeta was a little apprehensive, but I bulldozed her into my plan.

On 3^rd August, my sisters and their families arrived in the late afternoon. They came wearing masks. However, once at home, as we started chatting, the masks were quickly removed. In retrospect, that was the biggest mistake. We were together for a couple of hours. Aai was particularly happy, as she was meeting them almost after six months. Soon they were gone, and all of us were feeling good.

On 4^th Morning, we came to know that one of our guests was running a temperature and feeling tired. He was taking rest. The weather was quite foul last couple of days, and we attributed it to weather.

On 6^th night, Geeta suspected that she had a fever. We checked the temperature and it was around 100 (degrees F). She also had an upset stomach. On 7^th, I felt tired. I still took my online classes, though I felt a little weak, as there were no classes on the 8^th and 9^th.

In the meanwhile, the guest who was not well, had temperature and kept feeling tired. He had been tested for Malaria and Dengue, but they were both negative. So he decided to get tested for Corona. On 8^th August, he got tested for Corona in the Holy Family Hospital in Bandra. By now, he and his doctor had an extraordinarily strong suspicion that it was Corona, and they conveyed the suspicion to us. At home, they were staying in different rooms, and so we also started staying in different rooms as well.

We also started educating ourselves about Corona right in earnest. One resource that we found especially useful and informative was Dr. Dhanajay Kelkar’s Lecture series on fight against Covid. He is the Medical Director of the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune. One of the key learning from the lectures was that if someone is infected, the symptoms will start showing on day 4 or day 5.

On 10^th morning, our guest received a call from BMC that he was corona positive and someone would be coming to his residence to advise him about next steps. Soon, he had BMC officials visiting. Their home was sanitized, and he was taken to the Holi Family Covid Quarantine Centre.

When we heard the news, we were quite certain that we must be corona positive. If our guest was infected when we met on 3^rd, then the symptoms Geeta and I displayed on 6^th / 7^th  which were 4^th/5^th day from the 3^rd must mean we were infected. We decided to get tested, and our hunt for the testing facility began.

I called up the Covid war-room of BMC in Bandra West. The person at the other end was very helpful, though a little verbose. From him, I gathered that there is no walk-in test facility anywhere and the best way to do the test is with prior appointment. Some testing facilities need a doctor’s prescription, and some do not. We had another problem. At 89, I did not want to take my mother to a testing facility and expose her to any further risk. So, I was looking for a facility that will collect the sample from our home. After many phone calls and enquires and help from many other people, I discovered that Suburban Diagnostics provides home collection service for Covid and the booking can be done online. Soon I had booked the sample collection for all three of us. The appointments were available only on 11^th. The samples were collected next day and then began our wait for the reports. The Suburban Diagnostics website said that the results are expected by 14^th August.

After the discomfort I had felt on the 7^th, I had not experienced any other symptoms. Geeta also did not have any fever, but her stomach continued to be upset and had lost her sense of smell on the 11^th . Aai was not showing any symptoms at all. As we were waiting for the results, we started formulating our strategy, if we were corona positive. In this period, Dr. Vijaya Datey, a senior doctor and my sister-in-law was an extraordinarily strong support. She is a practicing doctor in Pune, and even during this pandemic, she has been going to her clinic every day. Her advice was to remain home quarantined as we were not showing symptoms. She started us on Zinkovit, Vitamin C and Nerobium Forte. She also told us to keep drinking lots of hot fluids, gargle a couple of times a day and do steam inhalation.

On 13^th morning, I received a call from BMC. The person at the other end, Pranali, informed that all three of us had tested positive. The things after that started happening like clockwork.

A person from BMC visited our house and sanitized the whole house. We were also told that our garbage will be collected separately by a different garbage collector. A board was put up outside our building.

I received a call from a BMC doctor asking us whether we would be getting admitted to a Covid quarantine centre. I told her that we would remain home quarantined. She said it was ok for me and Geeta, but my mom must be taken to a quarantine centre as she is 89 years old. I told her that it’s precisely the reason why I don’t want her to be taken to the hospital. She is a little hard of hearing and cannot easily understand communication from strangers. She told us that as per the new protocol, my mother would have to be admitted to the hospital. If we were not willing, then we should talk to the senior medical officers of BMC.

Geeta then talked to Dr. Sadhana Deshpande, who is a close friend and has been our family doctor. Till recently, she was working in the BMC. During the pandemic, she has again started going to a BMC clinic. She talked to the senior doctors and got an exemption for my mother. Pranali then got an undertaking signed from all of us that we were choosing to be home quarantined on our own responsibility.

We were told to monitor our temperature, pulse rate and blood oxygen concentration every day, multiple times a day. We didn’t have a pulse oximeter. Mihir, my son, had one. He immediately sent it to us using WeFast couriers, a home to home courier service.

And then the help just poured in. Neighbours, relatives, society members, managing committee, everyone pulled all the stops and helped us wholeheartedly. They took turns in providing us food. We are so overwhelmed by all the support we received and thank everyone wholeheartedly.

The BMC also kept following up with us. Everyday, we received 3 IVR (interactive voice response calls), one for each of us, which asked us if we had fever and if we needed any immediate medical help. Every alternate day, each of us received calls from the Covid home quarantine cell. These calls would last for upto 10 minutes. The caller would go through a detailed questionnaire asking us so many questions about how we were feeling, symptoms etc, that at times would get irritating. But the caller was always patient and completed the questionnaire. BMC also collected our garbage separately every alternate day. Overall, I am quite impressed by how BMC is working in this pandemic.

Our days in quarantine soon fell into a routine. Wake up around 7.30. Morning rituals including gargling, followed by a Covid specific exercises directed by Dr. Dhananjay Kelkar. Reading / Youtube / Watching TV. Geeta finished a 700 page book during quarantine. Lunch. Siesta. Afternoon tea. Play cards. TV. Inhale steam (twice a day), Dinner. Play cards. Ayush Kadha. Sleep. We monitored with thermometer and pulse oximeter 4/5 times a day. Our children insisted that we send them the reading every 3 hours. We also kept in touch with our doctors. Initially daily, and later on alternate day basis.

The Ganpati festival also happened during our quarantine. Since last 10 years, we have been using a metal Ganesh murti, and doing visarjan in home. This year, we did do pran pratishtha. However, unlike every year, we did Ganpati visarjan on the 2^nd day.

This 17 day quarantine is now coming to an end. We are all feeling much better and should resume our regular “locked down” life again. We have been lucky that we came out of this without much damage. To summarize, here are a few lessons

1. Take Covid seriously. It is extremely contagious.
2. Use masks. Particularly when you are likely to meet others. No exceptions.
3. One of the reasons we think we got off cheaply because we were quite fit. Remain fit.
4. If you do get infected, do not panic. The situation now is much better than it was in April 2020. We now know a lot more. Also, the medical fraternity is now much more knowledgeable.