By: Frances Lombard
So, I have taken some time to consider sharing my “story”. It is interesting seeing statistics and knowing you are one of them.
At first I was part of several hundred thousand, listed as “tested”.
Did I need to be tested?
I almost feel guilty that I paid R850 to be tested, privileged that I would receive my results in a matter of days.
My shame at this luxury is informed by how it came to be that I required testing (at this point my mom might murder me, because I haven’t told her the full story as she is likely to end me faster than any virus).
One Sunday evening, an activist sent a flurry of voice notes, speaking of the desperate need for help. A member of his community had been waiting for an ambulance for 10 hours.
At the same time, an organisation I volunteer for was sending out a message for volunteers because there was a request for more ambulances in the Metro. I was already in semi-isolation because some of the feeding programs I have been involved in had become hotspots in recent days.
I phoned the activist, and spoke with the patient and his wife.
He was lucid, he could hold a conversation with me, and I knew there were few resources available.
I told him and his wife to sit tight, that hopefully the ambulance would come overnight.
I told him what to look out for, and told his wife to please call me at anytime during the night if she felt at all fearful.
I told my activist to check in with me in the morning, that I would be in the area on Monday and could arrange to visit the family as well.
I went to bed like any other Sunday evening.
He was struggling to breathe, he couldn’t talk . . .
On Monday morning, the activist called me to say that this man was not well and the ambulance had not arrived. I was already on my way to the area, so I suggested I meet him at the family home.
There I met the young man, his wife, and 5 children. He was struggling to breathe, he couldn’t talk, and his family was hugely concerned.
He had waited for 24 hours for an ambulance and he had been tested for COVID-19 on the Thursday before as part of a community screening program. The province had announced a testing backlog of 20 000 people.
I helped to tie a dishcloth round him as a mask, and helped him into the back seat of my car. I let the family know that I believed he had COVID-19, but that I was not the person who could tell them for sure. I undertook to get him to hospital and to return to speak with them. I had to tell them that no-one could come with me.
I had my cloth mask, and that was it. I drove him to the closest hospital.
There I found a tent outside, screening people for COVID-19.
I spoke with the nursing sister, and explained that in my car I believed I had a patient that needed medical intervention, having already waited overnight.
She listened and spoke to a colleague. “No more beds are available in the COVID area” was the conversation. She turned back to me and asked how bad he was.
How bad was he? I am not in anyway qualified to answer this question.
Yes, I volunteer on an ambulance, but in this scenario, I am a layman. I simply knew what I observed: a young man struggling to breath, unable to carry his arms up to tie the towel around his face, but compared to those in waiting and those in the hospital already: I had no idea.
I looked at her, and said as honestly as I could, “I am not comfortable with his breathing and I don’t think I can take him to another hospital without him needing help”.
I cannot be more thankful to the Sister. She noted my concern, and told me not to worry, they will make a plan, and told me to bring him in my car around to a separate entrance.
They helped me to get him into a wheelchair, into a space in their hospital, and onto oxygen. I was so relieved to have the burden off my shoulders, albeit for only a moment.
What comfort is there to offer in such a time?
One day later, he was on a ventilator. I was devastated. Then I realised, it is not my place to be devastated. This young man has a wife, 5 children, and they had nothing. I reached out to my community, who graciously provided 2 weeks of food for the family.
I made arrangements to meet with the family. Their knowledge of COVID-19, symptoms, how it is transmitted, everything that I took for granted in my circle and community, simply was not on the ground in theirs.
I spent some time with the mom, scared for her husband and her children. We had a long talk. I had no idea what to say, other than to be present.
Should I have screamed at the ambulance services on Sunday evening? I don’t think it would have changed the outcome.
Should I be angry with the system that hadn’t given results by Sunday? It would not have changed anything. Or maybe I would have fetched him on Sunday, or maybe the ambulance would have prioritised him? I don’t know.
Is it my guilt that had me sitting with the wife, or is it who I am? I felt so impotent, handing over food, telling the family to stay home. There was just nothing I could do. What comfort is there to offer in such a time? I am a flawed human that simply hugged another human, a heart-to-heart hug, it seemed the only humane thing I could do. We both cried. Social distancing had no place in this moment.
The young man is still on a ventilator. It has been so long, I am really uncertain if he will make it home. I doubt he will. I am not known for my optimism.
So it was that I became a statistic.
A few days later I started with a cough and nasal congestion.
I am, however, prone to getting a cold every time the wind changes direction.
I was not concerned. I had been exposed but I didn’t want to throw myself into a hypochondria-fueled tail spin.
Then I had an upset stomach, and then a fever, and then nausea.
I would wake up with a dry cough choking me. Hypochondria seemed less likely.
To test or not to test.
Honestly, I was saying I had COVID, I believed I had COVID, but hope is a cruel mistress at times. Eventually I decided that I needed to know, so that I could just prove myself a hypochondriac and get out of my slump and back into activist mode. I wanted to be out in the field helping people.
So it was that I became a statistic: Tested.
Not even 48 hours later, I moved to the second statistic: Positive.
It changed everything.
Did it change anything?
It changed everything.
My attitude to isolation, to work, to pressuring myself. To keep doing, just stopped.
I was able to tell my colleagues and community I can’t do any more right now, I must rest.
I keep checking in, and the wife and children are symptom-free.
The man is still on a ventilator.
My own symptomatic journey has been mild to moderate.
The oddest has been yawning, not a recognized symptom, but I have never yawned so many times per hour, hour after hour. I am convinced I am yawning in my sleep.
Breathlessness has been something that comes, especially when I try to talk, which I think many people are most pleased about.
Finally I can’t have the last word as I barely finish the first sentence without needing to breathe.
It comes and goes, and I am safe at home, just resting.
What has been interesting is how quickly fatigue hits. I feel full of energy, get up, take a few steps and that is me done, like I have run a mile.
What a luxury to have had a test, knowing how it modified my behaviour, enabling me to be forgiving of myself for having to rest and having others give me permission to rest.
There are many things I could be crucified for in this post. I am not perfect and this world is not perfect.
Hopefully I will be back in the field by my birthday. The only present I want is for the man to make it home, but I have little hope of this wish being fulfilled.
This story is halfway through, and I am really fearful that whilst I am going to be ok, the final statistic, death, is going to be so much more personal to me. Not a friend, not a colleague, a man I met once, but a man I care deeply for, whose family I feel so connected to.
What divides community from communities?
This country is the most beautiful country in the world. I believe that.
The people in it have the spirit of hope, of optimism, of forgiveness.
Yet we have such incredible poverty, and inequality. In spite of this, we have such compassion and unity.
I struggle to reconcile how the spirit of the people in our community is not reflected in the equality of our communities. What divides community from communities?
Is that what it is, we are united, but we are divided from the top, all the time.
Separated into boundaries, suburbs, wards, cities, provinces.
We build a spirit in a group but seldom as a whole.
We can unite behind 15 men on a field, but when it comes to digging beneath the surface, one layer down, we cheer for different teams… Stormers, Bulls, Sharks… another layer down False Bay, Collegians, Lagunya.
Is this the failure? Are we only part time South Africans?
Maybe it starts with an anthem, sung at every assembly, at the start of every sport match, regardless of level. Maybe a flag on every corner, maybe take a lesson from Faf: a flag on every under garment.
Full-time South Africans, in a single, united, community.
Written by: Frances Lombard
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