My father got drenched in rain for 2 hours. A day later, he developed sudden weakness and body pains with fever. He immediately took a tablet of paracetamol. My father is pretty hardworking but he stayed back, to rest at home, due to weakness and fever. In just 2 days later I had a sudden onset of headache. The headache was throbbing and continuous without any relief. As the day passed, I started loosing taste. The very next day my sister, a physician herself, had a pretty sudden onset of cold and her son just 3 years old, had an episode of fever. It is pretty soon obvious, the quick transfer of symptoms to other family members. 
So we got our blood tests ( CBC with ESR, CRP, ferritin, D dimer. All the tests came abnormal and we decided to get HRCT done. Me and my sister were graded Corad 3 while my images were graded 5. My mother and brother in law had minimal abnormalities in blood workup and their CT was clear.
With most of my immediate family getting infected in a very short time and my father whom I adore and admire for his hardworking nature, the sudden turn of events caused lot of misery to me. It was decided that me, my sister and father would move to a separate house to ensure isolation from rest of the family.
While me and my sister were put on antibiotic, multivitamin with zinc and ivermectin, my father disease manifestation was more aggressive and hence he was put on steroids, heparin and flavir in addition to the medications I was on. ima
All the three of us lost appetite. There was continuous discomfort in the chest and unusal weakness. We couldn’t perform even slight work, something like moving a bucket of water, walking or standing for even a few minutes. This extreme inability makes it more stressful and concerning. Our sleep was disturbed. I couldn’t imagine that it is a struggle to even sit for a few minutes. We completely lost taste and smell.
We started taking steam inhalation in the hope that it will help improve our discomfort in the chest but neither could we smell the vicks in it nor got any significant relief.We continued the medications and steam for 7 days. We got our blood tests done every 3 days. Slowly but steadily, the blood work up started improving. The improvement was noticed from the 3rd day of medication itself. But sense of smell took almost two and half weeks to recover. It was all of a sudden I realised maybe I could barely feel the sensation of something in my mouth and slowly the smell started coming back. The improvement once it started happened pretty steadily and I could perceive the change almost on a daily basis. But interestingly, taste took longer to restore. Infact like a side effect of this infection my psoriasis got aggravated.
During all this, I even experienced excruciating muscle pain below the shoulder blades. Even after 4 weeks I continue to experience the pain in the muscles. The episodes of headache and chest discomfort continue to persist though in much smaller intensity.
In this covid journey of mine headache was the predominant symptom with only one episode of fever and cough. If not for my father experiencing high fever, as a precautionary measure, I too got tested and thus could initiate treatment early avoiding aggravation of the disease as in my fathers case.
Karuna Patient APP
We carefully monitored our temperature and SpO2 levels on an hourly basis through the app. The dashboard helped us track our trends and was a sort of easy reference and a reassuring thing to look at my own vitals on a daily basis.
Though compared to my father, we weren’t infected severely, I was continuously anxious about my kids who were in the other house. The separation added to the struggle to overcome the Covid.
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I would advice people to be cautious of any symptoms, not just cough cold and fever. As in my case even headache could be a predominant symptom while I know few of my friends whose main symptom was diarrhoea. Since even doctors have not fully understood the disease manifestations, it would be prudent to be extra careful. Avoiding close contact with suspected people, deferring crowded places, taking care of cleanliness while in public places is pretty important. Do not underestimate the importance of use of masks. Be aware of the objects we are touching and consciously avoid touching your face.
Make it a habit to use sanitiser on a regular basis and wash hands with soap as frequently as possible. A high degree of awareness about sanitation and heightened consciousness about social distancing is mandatory. It is pretty basic human nature to assume that disease would not affect us, but our family is itself an example. In spite of taking all the known precautions, most of our family members had the disease. Hence any sort of lethargy and laxity will accentuate the possibility of contracting a possibly lethal disease.
Also it is important realize that inspite of we all tested negative by throat swab, our CT Scans had definitive features. So a negative covid test isn’t really confirmative.
If tested positive, I advise you not to panic. Reach out to a doctor with experience in the management of infectious disease, especially somebody who had been actively managing Covid patients. A good protein food, diet with supplements will help you get through the ordeal.
Dr Hima Bindu
Dr Hima Bindu, is a practicing doctor from Vishakapatnam and also has to her credit, an Exec MBA from Indian School of Business.