My room-mate kept spirits up at hospital: COVID survivor

Harsh Vajani, 36, Mumbai

I am not very sure how I got the infection - it might have been from the cab I had taken to go to office before the lockdown began. For me, it began with a mild fever, cough and stomach ache on March 21. I told my family doctor, who prescribed medicines for the fever. But that didn't help. I also developed very bad body pain and fatigue.

I expressed the doubt that it might be Covid-19 but since those were early days, the doctor started me on dengue and malaria medicines. He advised me to self-isolate at home. He also prescribed a couple of blood tests, one of which showed I had an infection. Then he suggested a Covid-19 test to rule it out.


I was somehow confident that I did not have it but when the results from the private laboratory came on March 30, it showed I was positive. I became worried because of all the news coming in. My bigger concern was about my 3-year-old son and 65-year-old mother. I was relieved when their results were negative. I then got a call from the BMC that I had to be admitted to a hospital. By then, I had already been on other medicines so I felt like I was recovering.

There were very few cases then and beds were available so I got admitted at Seven Hills. I was in the hospital for five days. There, they gave me hydroxychloroquine and tamiflu. They monitored my blood sugar and pressure and took my chest X-ray and ECG. But no other treatment was necessary.

Mine was a twin-sharing room and the other gentleman helped me keep my spirits up. The facilities were very good and I was not charged anything, though that might have changed now. I was discharged after two consecutive tests returned negative.

While I was unwell, I got very good support from the staff in the hospital, people in my apartment and from the BMC, including the police, who called and checked how I was. I have donated my plasma which has gone for testing to the National Institute of Virology, in case it can be of use to someone else.