Living With COVID-19

Mum influencer Shradha Mehra Virani aka, The Diaper Drama, recalls her experience looking after the kids and her household, as a COVID-positive patient

- Shradha Mehra Virani

It was like any other night at home. My husband had recently resumed work, albeit in a relatively populated commercial complex. We were sitting with my kids Avika (six) and Nivaan (three), watching television post dinner. I was being the good wife, sitting on the couch with my husband’s feet on my lap, and he said, “Press my feet, please; they’re hurting.” This was normal for us, since massaging his feet is like a daily ritual and something I do 10 out of seven days a week. However, a few minutes later, he looked at me with a slightly uneasy look and said, “Let’s go to the room. I’m not feeling too good.”

My thoughts attributed this behaviour to just another long day. So, we went off and while I was putting the kids to sleep in our room, he curled up in a corner and started shivering. Switching off the air conditioning and two blankets later, he was still trembling. While he quivered my mind slowly started to freeze with questions I didn’t have answers to, in that moment. Is this it? Is it the dreaded virus? Will he be okay? Will we be okay? The kids? The staff? I tried staying calm and unrelentingly nursed him through the hours. Slowly, he started feeling warm.

His temperature oscillated between 99 degrees Fahrenheit and a 100. My gut signalled to me that this probably was it. It was the middle of the night, so I called my friend in New York whose husband had just recovered from the dreaded virus, and took a few pointers, just in case. Shivering wasn’t classified as a COVID-19 symptom so I was hoping that that was our saving grace. We met a doctor and did a few tests. He was symptomatic in some ways. The fever had risen to 102 degrees. The shivering now grew into an excruciating body ache. A head that seemed like it weighed a tonne, coupled with a slight cough.