Wednesday 1st April is one day 26-year old Musa Miiro says he will never forget. He is among the Coronavirus survivors who the Ministry of Health discharged on Monday 20th April. Miiro recalls the nervous shock he suffered at around 9am on 1st April from Kisubi Hospital where he had previously been admitted and treated for COVID-like symptoms. It was hee that he got the news he had tested positive for the very unforgiving Coronavirus. “It was a phone call and the person on the phone required me to rush to Kisubi Hospital to get my results. I replied I’m too weak to come myself and when I failed to get anyone to send there, because I live alone in my rented room, I forced myself to ride my Boda-Boda there though I was feeling very weak. On seeing me, the medical teams who had the results thought I’m the one Miiro had sent. They asked me how is Miiro and I replied he is at home,” he recalls during an interview conducted outside his one-roomed house in the Ziika Village neighborhood near Kisubi earlier today.
The medics demanded he takes them to Miiro’s home. “They said take us there and its urgent because he has tested positive and has Coronavirus. I became broken but continued pretending to be okay. They asked me to jump into the ambulance and take them to Miiro’s home. One of the Hospital staff rode the motorcycle closely behind the ambulance. Somehow the owner of the Boda-Boda, my boss, saw a stranger riding his bike and intercepted him thinking it was a thief. That is when I opened up and told them I’m the Musa Miiro but just too terrified.”
At first the team in the ambulance didn’t readily believe he was the Miiro they were looking for until people in the village corroborated to them he was the one. The following is how Miiro narrates the rest of what happened.
By now it was past 10am. The ambulance headed to Entebbe and we used the back entrance to enter Entebbe Grade B Hospital which was to be my place of abode for the next 18 days. They led me to a small room where I was presented with a new mattress, blanket, bed sheets, pillows and other things. It was small but fairly comfortable and I was confined to live there alone. There was also a guard outside of the room perhaps to ensure I remain safe and don’t attempt running away. At 1pm, they served me food and thereafter caregivers came to interact with me to understand more about my symptoms and how I was generally feeling. I was given the initial medication at night that very day and it was accompanied with injections. And I was on constant medication since that time and this was medication of different kinds which I don’t know much about. What I know is that I’m now much better and was discharged after confirming I was out of danger.
Every 3 days, blood samples have been taken to test my blood. The other thing I need to tell you is about the headache I had. It was really intensive because even inside Entebbe Hospital, inspite of all the treatment I was on, it stayed with me for the first 10 days. The cough was also unrelenting unlike the running stomach which cured and stopped immediately on the first day. The running stomach came with the severe stomach pains I had at the beginning of the problem before I even knew it was Coronavirus.
The authorities at Entebbe Hospital were very professional and emotionally supportive. I learnt from them that lemon was very good for Coronavirus patients and, because they allowed us to keep our phones, I rang my friend who would regularly bring for me lemon, leaving it at the reception from where it would be passed on to me. Through my phone I was free to regularly call and keep in touch with my close family and friends. They would call as often as they liked. These were mostly phone calls of encouragement urging me to soldier on.
Even when nobody would be allowed into the room, apart from the medical teams, I wasn’t that much bored because I became friends with another patient; a female. She onetime strayed into my room and was badly looking for someone with a charger to help her charge her phone to keep in touch with her people. We exchanged numbers and when bored, I would ring her or herself rung me and we would talk and encourage each other. In fact, she is still there. We left her there because she isn’t yet well like us to be discharged. I had become like her doctor because as her predecessor in terms of when we each got admitted, I had deeper experience about this Coronavirus thing than herself. She would ask me many things about the disease and how to avoid emotional distress that comes with it.
On being discharged, all my belongings were taken away from me basically my clothes and I guess this is part of the strategy to prevent further infection or something like that. I’m just guessing. Before finally delivering me back to my home, they had to first fumigate the whole place and my entire house just in case. I’m generally very okay and grateful to the President. His message has been very clear and all the things he teaches people on radio and TV about Coronavirus are true. My fellow youths at Kitende Corner Boda state would dismiss some of the government messages arguing that this was just politics but the truth is Coronavirus is real and we must work together with government to defeat it out of our country. It’s a real problem but one that can be cured and for more people to be saved, we need to listen to and comply with everything the President tells us about Coronavirus.
I’m generally grateful to the President and my country for treating me back to normal. Everything was free of charge. I didn’t have to pay anything yet I got great care, medication and my meals on time. The only problem I sensed was that the Ministry people just abandoned me home and said I shouldn’t move away from my house for 14 days but I’m extremely constrained making it hard for me to comply with that directive. I’m alone at home and yet I must go to the shops to buy something yet I’m being shunned whoever sees me wants to run away thinking I still have Coronavirus. By the way I’m also financially very distressed and a small bread is all I could buy at the shop on being brought back home. I have no money because the health people just dumped me home here and didn’t leave me with any food or even money to survive on at least for the next 14 days. Mind you I have children and a wife. Much as they are in the village in Nakaseke Kapeeka where they had to be waiting for the news of my death, because nobody including myself ever I expected that I would live again, they are expecting financial support and maintenance from me. The dilemma is that I don’t know how to meet their expectations even when the 14 days finally end and I’m cleared free to operate my business again. The owner of the motorcycle already took it and I don’t think he will even ever talk to me again because, just like many other people, he doesn’t believe I’m Corona-free.
Actually stigma is a very big problem because nobody wants to associate with me anymore and even my landlord here wants me out because other tenants are scared of me and he could lose them. Fighting stigma is one area where I think I’m prepared to be useful working with our government, the media and NGOs out there to create that awareness showing people that Coronavirus isn’t a death sentence but a disease like any other though in my case I have never suffered the pain I went through under Corona. Especially in this initial period as I struggle to reintegrate, I need everybody’s material support and prayers because my friends and neighbors will only accept me back gradually. Unfortunately, I heard of the posho and beans for the economically distressed in my category but those government people who brought me home never guided me on that. So I’m here and I don’t know where to start from yet I need that food badly to live through the next 14 days of home confinement as directed by the health teams. If nothing comes through I will have no option but to call some friends to hire to me their Boda Bodas and I return to the road to get something for my family because I’m of ‘mere ya leero’ and I live hand to mouth. The good thing I have customers who have my phone contact and I can get deals to deliver their things here and there.
I’m also restless as a parent because I’m eager to see my children who are in Kapeeka. I have three children who, just like their mother, never expected me to get out of the hospital alive. I’m happy to be out but the price I’m paying relating to stigma in the community where I live is extreme and I sometimes keep regretting why they removed me from the hospital. I’m alone at home and yet I must interact with things like shops to buy at least one small bread and take it with water. I keep going to the shop but the stigma is very glaring. It’s something that makes me feel guilty and unwanted. It’s going to affect many other Coronavirus survivors from what I have seen so far.
BECOMING INFECTED
Before eventually linking up with Kisubi Hospital through which I eventually got to know I had Coronavirus, I had painfully lived with symptoms for four days. But I wasn’t aware what it was. As I battled the symptoms, I was on the road transporting people and cargo because I wasn’t aware of what it was. I was weak but couldn’t stay at home because I live hand to mouth as I told you. We are used to healing naturally and I initially thought the same would happen unaware it was something different. The day before I became too weak to be on the road, I had been to Entebbe where I closely interacted with my clients whose fish I delivered for resale. I also rode to Wakiso to bring chicken for one of my clients. I must tell you I must inadvertently have exposed many of them to this danger because we shook hands and closely interacted and we exchanged money-returning the balance and vice versa. I would be at my stage of Kitende Corner chatting with my fellow riders as we waited for clients. Even after the government advice, we continued shaking hands freely and I don’t know how the extent to which I affected them. I can’t tell how and at what point did I get exposed to Coronavirus because we can be very busy as Boda riders as you know.
On the morning of Friday 27th March I woke up with severe stomach pains coupled with running stomach. I also had extreme headache. I went to the nearby pharmacy and bought painkillers to self-medicate but registered no improvement. And by Monday 30th March all my physical strength was gone. I couldn’t even start my Boda-Boda and was planning to get somebody to ride me in case I had to go anywhere. Gratefully, that’s the day I got the phone call from Kisubi Hospital asking me to go for the results which had returned indicating I had tested positive for Coronavirus. All the previous tests at Kisubi Hospital had indicated there was nothing wrong with me. Things like typhoid, malaria, infection etc they usually test for were showing negative yet I was extremely feeling uncomfortable. It’s good they finally referred the blood sample to Entebbe for testing from where the problem was discovered. I certainly could have died without even establishing it was Coronavirus.
Credit: mulengeranews.com
