Luis Moranelli
11/04/2020 11:39
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 11/04/2020 11:39
From the beginning of the pandemic, I assumed that I was going to get coronavirus.
It sounds fatalistic, but my girlfriend's job as a resident physician didn't leave much room for optimism.
What I didn't know was that
the Covid-19 plan was so far-fetched
.
"I lost my sense of smell," Julieta wrote me one Saturday night, after
endless guards
in which she had been in contact with suspected cases and confirmed infections.
He took all the precautions, but they were not enough.
I received the message in the
Clarín
newsroom
, five minutes before I left.
I had kept my distance from my colleagues and used a mask, but
the first reaction was guilt
.
What if I infected someone?
I recounted what had happened and left quickly, as if escaping.
Two days later, a PCR test confirmed that my girlfriend had coronavirus.
"Detectable".
His lungs were fine and the symptoms were mild.
First relief.
My swab was negative.
"Not detectable".
They explained to me that it could be a misleading result and that I should remain locked up.
Without the possibility of isolating myself inside my house, I assumed myself infected, as indicated by the protocol of the Province of Buenos Aires.
The following days came the good news.
Julieta was feeling better and my co-workers hadn't caught it.
I was accompanied by a slight pain in my legs.
We were beating the coronavirus by a landslide.
You just had to keep locked up.
I had heard many say that
the best thing that could happen to you was to infect you
.
That somehow you got rid of a problem and got an "immunity passport."
That for those who were healthy and did not have comorbidities it was
a strong flu and nothing more
.
Luis Moranelli is editor of Clarín and had a coronavirus.
Photo Marcelo Carroll
By the end of my isolation I already coincided with that look.
The illness had passed smoothly and became part of a privileged group.
Those who no longer had to worry so much.
But the virus had other plans. The counterattack was missing.
A month later, the first doubts appeared.
A blood test determined that
he had no antibodies
.
I went through the email the lab sent me several times, looking for the error.
He had been locked up with a confirmed positive case, without distancing himself and even sharing the mate.
Why was there no trace of it on my body?
Where were my defenses?
There were several medical explanations.
Hypothesis, but no final judgment.
The manuals began to burn two months later, when the thermometer read that he had a fever of 37.5 °.
At half an hour, 38 °.
After a while, 39.5 °.
The next day the swab confirmed that, now, he
had coronavirus
.
They were days of very high fever, body pain and headache.
Or something more than that: the feeling that
Godzilla was stepping on my head
.
A CT scan indicated there were no signs of pneumonia.
It only remained to rest and be aware of possible lack of air.
It's hard not to get obsessed with it.
Try to listen carefully to your breathing, detect an abnormality.
Better to think of something else.
The daily routine was dictated by the
"thermal curve
,
"
the way doctors say to take a fever often.
When the thermometer read 40 ° I imagined that the much-heralded peak had arrived.
Fortunately this time the forecasts did not fail and the fever subsided after the fourth or fifth day.
The muscle pain and fatigue held out a little longer.
I think I tried to watch a series, but it was impossible to concentrate.
Television was in the background, almost like a murmur in which every now and then an indignant panelist called out for the return of football.
After a week in bed, he had to get up little by little.
Sweeping or hanging clothes was the equivalent of running three miles.
You had to be patient and wait for your body to react.
On the tenth day the most feared symptom appeared: loss of smell and taste.
Eating something without tasting it is a frustrating feeling.
Nothing serious, but annoying.
My version of "they cut off my legs."
I returned to the streets after spending three weeks locked up.
Today I am recovered and without sequelae.
I am one of the million recovered, a figure that was exceeded this Tuesday, which is already part of the statistics of the pandemic.
Some fear remains,
more linked to the lack of answers
on some key questions.
I still don't know if I was infected twice or if the first time I developed a strange immunity that then decided to abandon me.
Nor do I know how I got infected and what I did wrong, and even less if I have antibodies that protect me.
I only have one certainty: you have to keep taking care of yourself because
the virus always has the ball
.
ACE
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