Covid as My Crown
BY CYNTHIA U. SANTIAGO
Today, I begin to write my story as I recover from the Coronavirus Disease. During a Messenger chat with my younger sister May, she asked, “Was it painful?”
No.
Long time ago, in 1981, I suffered miscarriage. My husband Ed promptly took me to a hospital. At the emergency ward, while I waited for my gynecologist, I lay on bed grimacing. It was like there was a huge stone forcing to get out from my uterus through this closed hole down my private part. THAT was painful.
My COVID wasn’t like that. It was like this:
- SILENT. Yes, just as the news said. Without me noticing, COVID-19 just
crept into my lungs. I felt no pain.
- SUCKER. My COVID gradually sucked up my oxygen. Oxygen makes our blood flow which in turn makes our muscles move. So, with little oxygen, I could not move. Every time I attempted to turn on my side, I coughed, and huffed and puffed, gasping for breath. I couldn’t move even my hands. There was this dish on my bedside table and I just stared at it, wondering how the food would reach my mouth. I lay flat on bed like forever, wearing adult diaper because I could not get up to go to the toilet.
- SHAMEFUL. Since I couldn’t move, the front liners—nurses, aides, caregivers– did everything for me— from helping me take my medicines, feeding me, to washing my private parts when I peed.
If there was something that hurt, it was the pain of shame. This was at the height of the COVID Pandemic when hospitals were running short of front liners.
So, when I peed and my diaper had to be changed, at times, tall, burly MALE nursing aides—I heard pulled out from the emergency ward— came to take off my soiled diaper, wash me down there, and put on me fresh diaper. I cringed in shame.
In fairness, everyone who attended to me were professional medical practitioners— doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, aides, caregivers. And even the janitors. They all focused on doing their job well, regardless of who I was.
Like, when I edit an article, I don’t think much of the look or lack of the person who wrote it. I just focus on the words or sentences I have to correct. In the same manner, the hospital people did their job with clockwork precision— no matter my look or lack.
One guy cleaning me up even gently pacified me, “Ma’am, huwag ho kayong mag-alala. Bakla po ako.”
Which explained why his Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and mobile phone were both in gay pink.
So, I eventually forgot about the shame and I was actually simply grateful that someone— female, male, or whatever gender— came to make me comfortable. And heal me.
