Two weeks have passed, but Jitendra Joshi is yet to overcome the dreadful days of his life last month.
Mr. Joshi, a 38-year-old Bhubaneswar-based marketing executive, was extremely confident of keeping the coronavirus at bay as he followed all precautions the government has been suggesting from time to time.
Around the second week of April when his wife caught a fever, he shrugged it off and started medication as is done in case of a normal flu. On the sixth day, he started experiencing fever and his well-wishers suggested he go for COVID-19 test.
With all the disheartening news of sickness lurking all round, Mr. Joshi took no chances and underwent test. His family members, including his mother (77), wife (34), son (8) and daughter (nine months), too, got tested. To his utter surprise, every one other than his son tested positive.
“Initially, we decided to quarantine ourselves at our apartment, but the fever did not subside. It forced us to rethink on our strategy. We sought the help of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation to get admitted to a hospital. As Odisha was not yet affected by the second wave around that time, hospital beds were easily made available to us,” said Mr. Joshi recounting his experience.
All four members of the family were admitted to a city-based hospital, with government bearing the treatment cost.
Mr. Joshi’s nine-month-old daughter had to stay with her mother. “Everything was going smoothly and I was even informed by doctors that I would be discharged after a formal check-up. But the fever set in again and the doctors raised an alarm. I was put on oxygen support as my saturation level plunged to 91,” he narrated.
“I was administered Remdesivir. Doctors were in favour of sending me to the ICU. I opposed this as I wanted to stay positive. I did not want critical patents around me. After 11 days of hospitalisation, the doctors declared us coronavirus-free and we were discharged from hospital,” he said, with a sense of relief.
During hospitalisation, Mr. Joshi was perturbed by negative thoughts after coming across news of people succumbing to the disease in metropolises at regular intervals. He kept swinging between uncertainty and hope.
“It would have been Herculean task to get a bed, had I been infected now,” Mr. Joshi said, advising people to stay positive through one’s worst time.
