My Covid experience of being hospitalised or as I like to call it : Covid, The Kapil Sharma Show and Kicking Ass

Don’t ask, why me? I had immense anger and a feeling of being let down after testing positive since I was morally conscientious and a rule follower all through this period of the pandemic. If you do not let your anger and feeling of injustice give way to acceptance, it will consume you. Life never promised me it will be fair. It did promise to be my teacher in every possible way. Isolation is a great opportunity for internal dialoguing.

Hospital gowns need a major revamp in their functionality. I stapled the space in between the strings which barely held it together and also taped it. I saw some of us wear them backward and some with the strings forwards. Why do we need to feel like un-shapely sacks of potato slumped on beds? Any product designers listening? I have inputs to give on form, functionality, and fashion.

Goodwill is a huge thing and it earns a compound interest for you as well as the people you love and protect. Had it not been for my parent's goodwill and investment in the relationships, I would not have a hospital bed to lie in. Had it not been for my Doctor sister’s constant monitoring and insistence on being admitted immediately I would have not been here to say all this to you. Had it not been for my husband’s friendships that surrounded him and took care of him and two of them even driving ahead guiding our way to the hospital, I would be worried about things back home in a way that impedes recovery. The biggest accomplishment in life that one can have is the good people standing with you. Invest in people. Grow relationships. As my father says,” log judte jayenge, karavan badhta jayega.”

As my 18-year-old son was ferrying me in the dark to the hospital, I kept wondering if this was that time when I was supposed to give him any pearls of wisdom. I came up empty. If this was goodbye, had I done enough to make my boys into fine gentlemen, loving sons, caring partners, and good people? He not only saw me being taken away by a nurse to meet my eyes with a smile and a flying kiss, but he also had the patience and presence to complete the necessary hospital formalities and the empathy to call and comfort grandparents on his way back and every day after that. What else is the purpose of education but to be able to deal with life’s vagaries and joys as they present themselves, with empathy, bravery, and presence of mind?

You don’t need just doctors, but also advocates. Someone to advocate for you to make professionals care about you in a place where life and death are equally acceptable. I wasn’t going to be a faceless, nameless bed no. 3 but Pallavi, 44, laughs loudly, praises freely, imagines gulping down spoonfuls of Nutella to ease the root canal pain, thinks she can imitate Ananya Pandey well, and follows the Kardashians slyly. I was my advocate in getting my reports, knowing my numbers, tracking them, comparing the day to day, questioning the doctors about it, and not letting anyone down easy when it came to me getting better. It’s a little by little breaking down of doctor and patient gap that makes everyone more human in the same trenches. Stories are softeners.

Both, when you have time and when you don’t know if it’s on your side, you tend to sit in true isolation with yourself watching the reel of your life and picking those moments which were joyous and also those that you regret. Having lived life on my own terms I realised I had very few moments of regret in life and nothing I would want a do-over on. Oh just one regret, I didn’t take enough pics always postponing them to be in the best shape of my life the reality of which had escaped me as far back as I remember. So i decided to start where I was, the worst phase of my life and started taking pics in the hospital itself and have posted them here too. Don’t wait to live life, just start where you are. Filter free, and real.

There are two times I was met with shock and disbelief; the one first when I was told the place you avoided for all these months is where you will go to now. And the second and more shocking was to see the state of my home after coming back from the hospital. A house with 3 boys can be a very matter-of-fact house, as I discovered, with all essential things at arm’s length of the sofa and TV. Jokes apart, my husband did such a fine job of running everything so smoothly that it made me feel a little irrelevant, honestly. I had a whole lot of gratitude mixed with a little jealously that they liked the tiffin service so much, which, of course very swiftly I found a way to shut down- both the conversation and the service. A type-A personality + woman + mother combination becoming territorial can be scary. But it’s the little insider jokes between the father and sons that can get a little irritating and make one feel like an outsider and make you wonder if you were really gone for that long.

I got a new address very quickly for my Amazon delivery for some essentials. What is an address? It’s a place you can be proud of, it’s a place you want people to know, a place you have worked hard to earn. Except for some addresses wherein you stop en-route to fill in the gas, check your speedometer, slow down maybe a little bit, handover the wheel to someone else, trust them that they know the road, and learn to depend on others for choosing good music. That address in my amazon account is a reminder that although this was a stopover and not a milestone, it was equally important.

What an irony that the best offence against this virus which prides itself on isolating people and separating them and letting them know that you are alone in this, is actually in holding people close to you like never before. People are the most magnificent beings and they come in the form of unexpected friends from your present and long lost people from your past and the acquaintances’ holding you so close and so dear to them that you know they will always be in your future. There will be those family members who cannot be bothered even at this stage to as much drop you a message and let me tell you, these people are your biggest teachers in learning the subtle art of not giving a f**k. Let go of them, create mental space for new people that matter and expand your heart.

Human nature is to quickly form habits. I developed a routine of combing my hair as soon as I got up and the reason behind this was the housekeeping staff Jharna. She would say every day in a strict yet loving tone, “ Smart banke rahenge sab. Koi bimmar nahi hain yahan. Sab theek hokar jeyenge.” Her words of hopefulness meant more than what Sadhguru whispered in my ear in listening to him in my morning routine every day. I have carried that routine home. Just that now I find clumps of hair loss in the brush that I have to ignore along with the weakness that comes from a simple task of brushing them. The weakness hits you harder when the steroids have stopped but what does one do about this forever floating cloud of " Am I forgetting something? I am definitely forgetting something!" and having brain fog. I have always valued myself for my ability to think and it feels like I am forever stripped of it now. Sometimes it feels like this virus has set me back by a decade, cognitively but aged me further by a decade. But Jharna’s words ring in my ear,” Koi bimmar nahi hain yahan.”

You will have the selfish need for people to grieve for what happened to you and to catch them wiping a tear is more fulfilling than one would like to admit because in their pain you see you are still needed and loved. But at the same time all universal pain is still very personal and with yourself. When people share in it, as I have learned, it should be done with utmost respect and kindness not trying to minimise it or normalise it or humanise it and never trying to insert or situate themselves in the midst of it. Just being present in best. Without words is great because Words have the bad reputation of communicating. Happiness on the other hand is free for all to partake in. I am still trying to understand this.

Also there are as many ways to grieve as there are people. I heard this in Anthony Jeslink's stand-up comedy show on Netflix, something to the effect of wedding photographer taking selfies. Yes, people will try to make the suffering all about themselves leaving you to cater to their pain before yours. With such people, you need to let time pass for them to realize this themselves. Some never do. There are also those who may act tough as nails and unfettered in front of you only to go break down with their friends. With such people please don’t hold back your affection. They need more of it, in fact.

You are untouchable, but that need not stop you from touching people. The Covid emergency ward, cordoned off from the entire world, can feel sterile and solitary and lonely. The cold big lettered warning sign of ‘keep off’ pasted brutally on its doors definitely makes the world outside to sneak a look expecting to see a bunch of zombies locked away. You won’t have the people outside smiling back at you from behind their masks; you know when people smile from behind their masks, right, their eyes go squint and small. Still wear a smile for the people going by their business. If nothing else, just for fun in the beginning. An unexpected smile is highly contagious, even more than this virus.

Your resilience, your humor, your kindness, your people management will all be functioning in overdrive when you are in a state of emergency. You will be your best version to survive. You will however breakdown when you feel safe and harbored and anchored. I had my emotional break downs 2 weeks after I came back from the hospital, with sudden bouts of crying, going over the severity of what I went through and the worst that was evaded. As much as we pat ourselves on the back for standing up to the situation, hold space also for your breaking down, over and over, again and again. Be kind to yourself if no one understands why ‘now’ when the worst is behind us. No one will understand when your husband coughs even a little, why you feel guilty that maybe your condition did not let him heal completely. You are paranoid for your son because he did not get it then and what if he does get it now! You get up in the middle of the night to enter your children’s room like a thief with that hand thermometer. And just one instance of your father wearing an extra layer will make you pray constantly that it’s nothing more than December cold! I was used to giving people anxiety, and I hate that I gave myself one now. I am glad I have that relationship and bond with my brother that he can know my innermost demonic thoughts and still provide a sounding board for all of them to indulge me. And my greatest strength, my mother, to listen to my innermost fears and take in my anger and console me. I should not have done that to her but a mother is forever a womb for safety.

This covid ward is like a carousel that never stops; when a new patient comes on a bed beside you, you do not ask the nurse what happened to the earlier one but just pray that they are in a better place. The people on this carousel are so varied but joined through the intimacy of shared experiences. You stop seeing the big-ass tough-looking man as weak even when he is howling to not be given any more medicines or the old Guruji without headphones blaring The Kapil Sharma show on his phone as discourteous or the new patient with a huge snoring problem that would not let you sleep for nights together as inconsiderate. Labels fall off. Titles of accomplishment mean nothing. What you are left behind is checking up on each other several times during the day, sliding off the curtains that divide and unify in one human experience. Take that initiative. Everyone is waiting for someone else to slide their curtain.

The helplessness brings more shame when you realize you can give, but not ask. The grace and dignity in receiving and matching it with the love of the giver is an art that one needs to cultivate consciously. Thank you each one of you and I receive your gifts - the food that kind friends sent me, the ayurvedic kadha powder that one left by my door, the advice on medicine and a local doctor that one passed to me, the portable oxygen cylinders that made me feel safe, the loving messages every day on WhatsApp, the healings that energized me, the video calls that kept me company, the silly memes that you sieved through the gram to make me laugh, the harrowing PPE suits that my nurses wore and worked in so compassionately and diligently- with grace and gratitude.

Thank you!