DE­BRA WANSER, SUN­DAY GUARDIAN ED­I­TOR

de­bra.wanser@guardian.co.tt

COVID-19 sur­vivor CHRISTO­PHER AL­LEYNE:

It is Thurs­day morn­ing–May 27–and I am COVID-19 pos­i­tive, hooked up to an oxy­gen tank and ly­ing on a bed in the tent at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, des­per­ate­ly hop­ing to live but prepar­ing to die at age 53. I am get­ting worst based on my oxy­gen lev­els, my breath­ing is laboured, I have a high fever, and I am feel­ing ex­treme­ly ex­haust­ed, but Dr Surats­ingh, God bless him, kept me as com­fort­able as he could. I could hear him telling an­oth­er doc­tor how con­cerned he was about my wors­en­ing con­di­tion and that they will need to trans­fer me to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal. Hear­ing this I be­came very de­pressed and de­ject­ed, I sort of gave up hope and start­ed mak­ing peace with God be­cause I re­al­ly thought by Thurs­day night in­to Fri­day I would have passed away. I was at death's door. It was my third day at the hos­pi­tal. I was brought to the fa­cil­i­ty by an am­bu­lance on Mon­day, May 24 paral­ysed with fear. Thank the Lord I had tak­en the As­traZeneca vac­cine four weeks ear­li­er. But, had I not tak­en my first jab of the vac­cine, I was told, I would have more than like­ly be dead.

It is a known fact that even if you take the vac­cine, it does not pre­vent you from get­ting the virus. How­ev­er, it can pre­vent you–as it did for me–from dy­ing.

Christopher Alleyne on a regular day.

Sun­day, May 23

My mind is rac­ing back to Sun­day, May 23 at my sis­ter, Fran­cia's home in Ari­ma

That Sun­day was like any reg­u­lar Sun­day. I was at home and my nephew called and said 'We fry­ing fish and mak­ing a peas and rice, come up the road.' Along the way, I stopped and bought ice cream and cake. We had a great Sun­day evening filled with old talk and laugh­ter while sit­ting on her porch, we talked about go­ing on va­ca­tion and what we were plan­ning to do. We dis­cussed our plan to go to Dis­ney with my teenaged nephews, but we were wait­ing for COVID to set­tle down and the plan was to trav­el in 2022. We joked and had fun like we usu­al­ly would. When it was get­ting close to 5 pm I told them I was head­ing home.

At 5:05 pm, on my way back to my home hav­ing just passed Trinci­ty Mall I start­ed cough­ing, the cough was dry but be­com­ing un­com­fort­able. When I got home I called my sis­ter and told her how I was feel­ing, and she told me they were al­so get­ting a dry cough.

By 9:30 pm I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a very high fever and my con­di­tion was get­ting worst, not be­ing able to breathe. I start­ed to be­come ag­i­tat­ed as the hours passed and I was run­ning a very high fever. I start­ed pac­ing the house, con­vinced and scared that I had con­tract­ed COVID.

Mon­day, May 24

At ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2:20 am on Mon­day, May 24 the feel­ing is un­bear­able, I called for the am­bu­lance which ar­rived around 5 am. I was asked for per­son­al de­tails then tak­en to Mt Hope. Burn­ing up with fever, I ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal where I was wheeled in and placed on a chair while wait­ing to be in­ter­viewed and test­ed. I was even­tu­al­ly swabbed and told I was COVID pos­i­tive around 10 am. I was then tak­en for a chest X-ray and up­on my re­turn was placed on a bed in a makeshift plas­tic tent with ply­wood floor­ing where oth­er peo­ple had been for God knows how long. I was giv­en a mask and oxy­gen tank and told some­one would come and check my vi­tals.

At 1 pm I'm ly­ing there soak­ing up the ter­ri­ble con­di­tions un­der a hot plas­tic tent with ev­i­dence of sick­ness and death all around. I could see them mov­ing the guy next to me be­cause clear­ly, he was dy­ing.

All this time I'm grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly more tired and ex­haust­ed, weak­er and hav­ing se­ri­ous dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing. The doc­tors, nurs­es and at­ten­dants. mean­while, were pro­vid­ing yeo­man ser­vice work­ing in over­whelm­ing con­di­tions try­ing their ut­most to save lives.

Tues­day, May 25

It's Tues­day, May 25 at 2:45 am and this guy is ly­ing op­po­site to me just star­ing at me. My first thought was why is this guy star­ing at me? But he wasn't star­ing, he was dead.

He was re­moved from the bed and some­one else im­me­di­ate­ly re­placed him. Lat­er that morn­ing and with my con­di­tion now get­ting worst, I reached out to some fam­i­ly and friends for stuff that I need­ed and they did not hes­i­tate. I had so much that I could have af­ford­ed to give those who seemed aban­doned by their fam­i­lies.

Wednes­day, May 26

It's now Wednes­day, May 26 at noon and by this time I'm so weak and out of breath I could not even go to the toi­let, so I had no choice but to uri­nate in a bot­tle. Thank God, be­cause I wasn't eat­ing any solids I did not have the urge to do any num­bers.

Wednes­day night it's rain­ing, the place is part­ly flood­ing and we're cold. Two guys, An­tho­ny An­der­son and an­oth­er man who is a po­lice of­fi­cer kept us up­beat with lots of ole talk since we couldn't sleep.

A tent at Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex where COVID-19 patients are kept.

Thurs­day, May 27

It's the morn­ing of Thurs­day, May 27 and my con­di­tion is get­ting worst. I could hear Dr Surats­ingh telling an­oth­er doc­tor about my wors­en­ing con­di­tion. Filled with con­ster­na­tion, I start­ed prepar­ing my­self for the what I felt was com­ing–death

Fri­day, May 28

Fri­day, May 28 around 10:30 am I heard my name be­ing called, I raised my hand and two am­bu­lance at­ten­dants said 'You're be­ing trans­ferred to Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.' Those words be­gan giv­ing me a re­newed will to live. I was placed in the am­bu­lance and was on my way. Iron­i­cal­ly, the on­ly part of the jour­ney I re­mem­bered was pass­ing the Ca­roni bridge, I can't re­call any­thing af­ter that, I prob­a­bly passed out. I was told that up­on my ar­rival at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal at 11:30 am they took my blood oxy­gen which was read­ing 88. Now the av­er­age hu­man lev­el is al­ways 95-100 so in hind­sight, I could have been par­tial­ly liv­ing dead. The med­ical staff be­gan treat­ing me with med­ica­tion through the IV, I was told. By 6:45 pm I awoke not know­ing where I was and what had hap­pened.

I re­alised I was in a room with three oth­er men, I re­mem­ber the nurs­es call­ing a gen­tle­man by his name, Mr Chung. (He was dis­charged two days lat­er, on Sun­day, May 30 and sent home. I was hap­py for him.)

Sat­ur­day, May 29

On the evening of Sat­ur­day, May 29 a What­sApp mes­sage sent to me shat­tered my world. I was un­aware up to that time that my on­ly sib­ling, my sis­ter, Fran­cia, 58, who al­so con­tract­ed COVID-19 had passed away since Fri­day, May 28, but fam­i­ly and friends kept that news hid­den. That de­stroyed my con­fi­dence and I felt like I did not have any rea­son to live there­after. I was shat­tered.

I called my aun­ty and she had no choice then but to tell me the truth. I al­so found out that my broth­er-in-law, Richard, 58, died from COVID too; they died two to three days apart. They left be­hind their two teenage sons. Dev­as­tat­ed and trau­ma­tised by this news, I guess that caused my oxy­gen lev­els to drop again.

My sis­ter was a very kind, soft, un­der­stand­ing and over­ly lov­ing per­son. I used to be dri­ving my car and just think about my sis­ter and start to smile. My love­ly Fran­cia, my love, my life, my every­thing. Her hus­band was equal­ly a nice per­son. He treat­ed my sis­ter with plen­ty of love, plen­ty of ado­ra­tion, plen­ty of re­spect, they were well meshed, well put to­geth­er as a cou­ple and they were very very de­vout Catholics. Both Fran­cia and her hus­band had not got­ten their shots as yet.

When you talk about the re­la­tion­ship I had with my sis­ter, in my 53 years I have nev­er loved any hu­man be­ing like I loved my sis­ter and now I know it will be a very big void in my life to fill. We spoke every day, some­times twice a day and I en­joyed every con­ver­sa­tion and es­pe­cial­ly those spe­cial mo­ments we spent bond­ing on her porch in Ari­ma when I vis­it­ed.

I am go­ing to hold on to those mem­o­ries and cher­ish them.

Fran­cia was my on­ly sib­ling. I am an or­phan now, I have no­body right now.

My sis­ter left two beau­ti­ful teenage sons, and it will be a plea­sure for me to as­sume the role of their guardian an­gel. I would like to take the lead in the care of my nephews.

On Sat­ur­day night around ten, still in deep grief over my sis­ter's death, not be­ing able to say my last good­byes and won­der­ing what is my pur­pose for con­tin­u­ing to live, two oth­er gen­tle­men and I were tak­en for CT scans and re­turned to our beds.

Sun­day, May 30

By the af­ter­noon of Sun­day, May 30 the news wasn't too good be­cause it seemed the oth­er two guys did not make it. All the while I kept ask­ing my­self, why am I still alive?

Mon­day, May 31

It's now the morn­ing of Mon­day, May 31 and Dr Rouse came to take my blood oxy­gen lev­el, tak­ing blood by in­ject­ing my wrist...let me tell you, it's one of the most painful pro­ce­dures, but I was warned. I was giv­en lots of an­tibi­otics through the IV and lots of oth­er med­ica­tions/tablets.

Tues­day, June 1

By the morn­ing of Tues­day, June 1, Dr Rag­bir changed my oxy­gen mask. Both her­self and Dr Rouse are fan­tas­tic doc­tors and the health­care sys­tem are much bet­ter for hav­ing them.

So it's Tues­day evening and my oxy­gen lev­els are now hit­ting the high 90s but not yet 100, but I was breath­ing much bet­ter.

Christopher Alleyne.

Wednes­day, June 2

I was ex­am­ined very ear­ly on the morn­ing of Wednes­day, June 2, my oxy­gen lev­el was now back to 99/100 and Dr Rouse and Dr Rag­bir ad­vised that I will be re­moved from the oxy­gen. By noon there was talk of me be­ing dis­charged.

It was great news for me, but I was very sad hav­ing to leave es­pe­cial­ly the three oth­er ladies who were in the room. Al­though I nev­er saw them be­cause we were all be­hind blinds, my heart went out to them es­pe­cial­ly the la­dy ly­ing op­po­site to me, be­cause I lis­tened to her hus­band on the phone the Sun­day night and he made me cry when he was beg­ging his wife to get bet­ter and come home. He kept telling her that nei­ther he nor the chil­dren could live with­out her. That was very tough to en­dure. I had to put my hands over my ears so I could not hear what they were say­ing any­more.

I'm not sure what has hap­pened but I'm hop­ing God spared her life and she's ei­ther get­ting bet­ter or home.

It's Wednes­day evening and I have re­ceived my of­fi­cial dis­charge doc­u­ments from the doc­tors. A tall at­ten­dant is wheel­ing me out...he asked me my age and I said 53 years and he then jok­ing­ly said, 'In your 53 years, big man, I'm sure you were nev­er this hap­py to see the sun.' And he was so right.

Along the way, though, we came down to lev­el two and I no­ticed there were ta­bles in the cor­ri­dor and I asked him what was all that and he told me not to look, it was then I re­alised it was dead peo­ple.

As we got out­side be­fore I de­part­ed the fa­cil­i­ty, he told me that I was the first liv­ing per­son he had brought out­side for three days.

Now that I've had the un­for­tu­nate ex­pe­ri­ence of hav­ing ac­quired COVID I just want to tell the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to please, please get vac­ci­nat­ed be­cause it's gonna help save your lives.

I'm just so hap­py to be alive and I will like to thank all my fam­i­ly friends and well-wish­ers for the con­tin­ued prayer, sup­port and words of en­cour­age­ment.

Spe­cial thanks to all the peo­ple who were there for me dur­ing that try­ing time:

Jef­frey Guillen

Col­in Bor­de

Buxo Potts

Gary Came­jo

Nneka Daniel

Mar­lon Springer

Miguel Paty for in­form­ing the group

Love you guys!

Tues­day, June 8

Tues­day, May 8 I am home and I am feel­ing a lot bet­ter phys­i­cal­ly but there is so much on my mind that I am hav­ing is­sues sleep­ing due to the lev­el of trau­ma. Thank­ful that on Mon­day night, the first time since com­ing home, I was able to get close to five hours of sleep. I am hop­ing to get a lit­tle more sleep tonight.

The take­away for cit­i­zens young and old

1. I wish I could go through­out the coun­try and tell peo­ple to wake up and un­der­stand that had I not been vac­ci­nat­ed, I would have been dead. I would not have been able to break free from the clutch­es of this in­sid­i­ous virus. Use me, use my tes­ti­mo­ny. I would like to be the voice to cham­pi­on the cause to let peo­ple in this coun­try know the im­por­tance of get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed.

Had I not got­ten the first jab of the vac­cine chances are I would not be sit­ting here to­day alive. I would like to em­pha­sise the need for cit­i­zens of T&T to get vac­ci­nat­ed. Un­for­tu­nate­ly for me be­cause I got my first vac­cine and was then di­ag­nosed with COVID, I now have to wait three months to get my sec­ond jab near the end of Au­gust.

2. Peo­ple in T&T need to un­der­stand what fan­tas­tic med­ical pro­fes­sion­als we have work­ing on our be­half to en­sure the peo­ple in their care be­come bet­ter. Hav­ing had the ex­pe­ri­ence of both med­ical fa­cil­i­ties, the Mt Hope and Cou­va fa­cil­i­ties, I would per­son­al­ly like to thank Dr Surats­ingh at Mt Hope and all the doc­tors, nurs­es and at­ten­dants be­cause they are do­ing a tremen­dous job un­der very over­whelm­ing cir­cum­stances. I would like to sin­gle out Dr Rouse, Dr Rag­bir as well as all the nurs­es, the med­ical at­ten­dant, the clean­ers and all who were very cour­te­ous, very help­ful and very nice. These pro­fes­sion­als, stretched be­yond their lim­its, looked ex­treme­ly tired and drained while work­ing dili­gent­ly to help save lives and they should all be ap­plaud­ed for this.

3. A brush with death al­ways help us live our lives bet­ter. But I am ap­peal­ing to you, do not wait for a brush with death to live bet­ter, love and cher­ish one an­oth­er right now when we are strong and healthy. Live well to­day be­cause to­mor­row is not promised to any­one. Live in love, we are our broth­er's keep­er, we do not know when is the last day, hour or minute.