Some feel they have been reborn after Covid, and others went through it as if it were the flu, but almost all agree on the fear they felt after contracting this disease. Fear of having infected others, of family members also affected getting worse, and of not knowing how they themselves would evolve. Santiago, Enrique, Carmelo, and Montse managed to defeat the coronavirus and now tell us about their experience with this "bad bug", which has been in our lives for a year now.
Carmelo Alemán, civil guard agent and basketball coach, was one of the first people to contract Covid on the island. "I have trouble sleeping in case I close my eyes and don't open them again," he said in an interview in early May of last year, in which he recounted the difficult moments he had experienced until overcoming this disease, after leaving the ICU after almost 40 days.
This man was hospitalized for two months because, in addition to the 36 he spent in intensive care, he spent 25 days on the ward. He left the hospital on May 14 of last year to applause from healthcare workers and colleagues from the Civil Guard, but his recovery was not yet complete.
"When you leave, you leave quite damaged, especially physically, in the sense that you can't walk well, because you've been in bed for a long time," says Carmelo, who says he had to use a walker for "a week or a week and a half" and do rehabilitation for two months.
He returned to work in September, but says that to this day he still doesn't feel 100% recovered. "When it comes to breathing, I notice that my lung capacity has become quite limited. Look, a little while ago I was running here with the girl, from the hallway to the room, and it seemed like I had run a marathon and it was 10 meters," he points out.
In addition, he is now concerned about vaccination. And in his case, he already received the first dose, but of the AstraZeneca vaccine, whose administration was suspended by the Ministry of Health due to the possibility that it may be behind several cases of severe thrombosis.
Santiago: "They have given me back my life"
"They have given me back my life," says Santiago Torres, who left the Molina Orosa Hospital just "five or six days" ago. There, he was admitted on January 27 after feeling "kind of strange, with pain in his chest and back" and lacking "a little air."
When he arrived at the health center, this 70-year-old man already knew that he was positive for Covid, because he had taken an antigen test and a PCR that same day. However, he did not expect that a day later he would be admitted to the ICU. "I had bilateral pneumonia with Covid, I was in a bad way, I was dying and I had had all the care in the world. I went shopping once a week with my hand sanitizer, I was only with my family, I didn't travel... I didn't know how I could have been infected," he says.
Before entering the ICU, they "put him to sleep" and he woke up "almost two weeks later." "When I was waking up, I couldn't stop crying. I said: Thank you God for bringing me back again," says the president of Coros y Danzas de Arrecife, who remembers those who unfortunately could not survive the coronavirus.
"There were several nearby who left, who couldn't withstand the treatment. I didn't have any pathology and I walked an hour a day. I had a healthy diet, I don't drink except some day like everyone else, I don't smoke, and I think all that influenced me to be telling you this today. I am happy, happy and eager to live," he says.
Santiago Torres left the ICU on February 20. There he lost "eleven and a half kilos of weight" and "his voice" although, as soon as he recovered it a little, he decided to pay tribute to the healthcare workers, in the form of a song. Now, and after spending a little more than two weeks admitted to the ward of the Molina Orosa Hospital, he is already at home, although he has to do rehabilitation. And it is that, he says that he can barely walk, because he "lacks air" and gets tired.
"I get overwhelmed, because from being in bed for so many days, my lungs have become lazy," he says with agitated breathing, although "excited" and "already preparing projects" with Coros y Danzas de Arrecife for when they can perform again. Of course, Santiago makes a call to the population, especially young people.
"Life doesn't end because you don't go to a party for a year," says Santiago Torres, who also believes that everyone should be vaccinated against Covid. "It is a very bad disease that, from the experience I have, I would not wish on anyone. It is a very bad bug, it kills you. If you don't go in time, it takes you, that's very clear," he concludes.
Montse: "I still have pains all over my body from time to time"
Montse Toribio is 52 years old and went through the coronavirus at home, although she took "an excursion" to the hospital. And it is that, what started with "a strange headache", continued with a "horrific pain, loss of smell, pressure in the eyes and throat, extreme exhaustion and trouble breathing." "They picked me up in an ambulance with the PPE and everything, although fortunately they returned me home," says this woman, who nevertheless had symptoms for more than two weeks.
According to her, she was infected "at the end of October", after her brother-in-law came to visit them from Vitoria. "He arrived on a Saturday and on Tuesday they told him that his boss had tested positive, but not to worry, because he was not considered a close contact and to live his normal life," she says.
The following weekend, Montse's husband "started to feel bad" but "he had gotten the flu vaccine" and they thought it would be "a reaction." However, the following Monday Montse already had symptoms too and then they decided to call the Covid hotline and they were tested, both testing positive.
By then, Montse's brother-in-law had already left the island, although he was finally tested and was also infected. In addition, Montse and her husband had eaten days before knowing they were positive with a friend and her 20-year-old daughter, who were also infected.
"There is a feeling of guilt. First you are afraid, not so much of what might happen to you, but for those around you, of having infected them. I was relieved when I saw that my husband was evolving well, my brother-in-law was practically asymptomatic, and my friend and her daughter had a slightly stronger time than my husband, but they were also fine," says Montse. "You think a lot about whether you have done things wrong," adds this woman, despite assuring that in her house "all the rules were followed" against Covid and that when her brother-in-law visited them "distances were maintained."
"I, a year ago, said that I was not afraid. And it was true, I was not afraid of the bug, but of the economic consequences," adds Montse, since she also works in a hotel and has suffered an ERTE. However, now she is "very afraid" of the coronavirus, since she has also seen how people close to her family have died.
In addition, she points out that she never thought that "this could last a year." "The third wave has been a horror and I don't take off my mask for anything with my mother, because you don't know to what extent you can't catch it again," says this woman, who also says that she still has "pains all over her body from time to time."
Enrique: "I had zero pain but a 10 of fear"
For Enrique Rodríguez, the coronavirus "was like the flu", although he experienced it with fear. "First for my family, for my girls," he points out, since his wife and nine-year-old daughter were also infected. Then, "in case I had infected someone and for the disease itself", for "how it could evolve.
This 49-year-old man contracted Covid during the third wave, after going to eat at a restaurant on January 3. "We went with another family and, respecting the rules, because we have always respected them, we left there the two families infected," he says, stating that there were more cases associated with the same place.
Six days after that meal, on Saturday, January 9, Enrique woke up with a headache but at first he thought it "was a hangover." Then, he began to worry, because he saw a bite on his body and before he had been "six months" sick with Q fever and hepatitis, after a tick bit him. Thus, after going to work on Monday and his temperature rising to 37.3 in the afternoon, all his alarms went off.
"I went to the doctor thinking I had the tick again and then he decided to do the antigen test, because only four days had passed, and I tested positive. Then, I locked myself in the basement, and my wife and daughter had it done three days later and they also tested positive," he says.
Despite being all infected, Enrique decided to stay in the basement "as a precaution", while his wife and daughter were upstairs. "Because some doctors told me that since they tested positive I could live with them, but others said it was better not to, that we should keep the mask and the distance," he says.
Thus, Enrique spent the disease isolated from his family. "What weighs the most are undoubtedly the hours of solitude, and I was in a 100 square meter basement, with a gym, television, books, Netflix, with everything; but there are people who spend it in a room and that has to be very hard," he points out.
Therefore, he considers that in addition to the physical damage, Covid is a disease that causes "a lot of mental damage." "I had had a very bad year of health, but with the tick thing I had 10 of pain and zero of fear, I suppose it was due to my own ignorance, and with Covid I had zero of damage but 10 of fear," he says.
However, Enrique "would pay" for everyone to go through the disease like them, since for him it was like the flu and his wife and daughter barely had symptoms.
