By having COVID-19 at home, the concept of danger changes. As sad as it causes me to know that a friend or colleague is sick and to see how many actors, journalists and personalities have died this year from the pandemic, it does not compare with living it in the family. It is a tension that I did not imagine.

How I suffered it at first hand I am going to share with you, and together with the experience, the wish that this nightmare ends soon and that no one else has to have such a bad experience.

Retelling

In that week it was raining every afternoon, the very melancholy that the rain always brings me joined when I saw my father and my husband leave, without being able to give them a goodbye hug, because their rapid antigen test tested positive for the virus and they had to go to an isolation center, two days later there was a knock on the door to confirm that the PCR was also positive for Sars-cov-2.

My mother, my daughter and I stayed at home, knowing that with the onset of any symptom we could be also infected. On the fifth day they both began to feel sick and only I came negative.

The bus that took them to the isolation center came around five in the afternoon, also in the rain, I helped them carry their belongings and saw the bus leave.

When it began to move away and I was alone in the doorway of the house, with the dismayed gaze of my neighbors, who accompanied my sadness, I did not know what to do.

The passage of days

So that my thoughts would not crush me, I looked for cloths and chlorine and disinfected all possible surfaces, even switches and keys, seats, ornaments, everything was checked.

Around nine o’clock at night, still in the rain, my father and husband arrived after being discharged, but they had to wait 14 days in isolation at home to complete the time in which the virus can be transmitted.

My work as a nurse was beginning and I had to stay healthy and safe to take care of them. Of course, still worrying about those who were still admitted, of which I only had news by phone.

The calm

When they were all discharged and the days of waiting passed, it was that I was able to think about the nightmares that we lived, to know of the discomfort of the disease they were experiencing and to have to keep the distance to stay healthy and take care of them at the same time.

The experience was not pleasant at all, because I always knew, through those who called to console us and through the news, that the post-COVID period is dangerous and in it, patients can present complications, so we must keep an eye on their progress.

Today, after the passage of days, when everyone is recovered and returning to work, school and housework, the bad memory does not go away, we are grateful that we are safe and the good deeds of the health personnel, which exceed the negligence and the wrongdoings of other people, because today we are alive to tell about this experience.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García