I faced death recently. I gave away all my possessions. Corona hit me hard, and seemed to win. Today, I am so grateful to be alive. I had never appreciated the preciousness of life as I do today.
I am thirty-three years old. I am a tribal young man from Odisha. Today, I am a social worker living in Delhi. I live alone in an apartment. As the second wave of the pandemic hit the nation, I was also one among the thousands who were affected by the Corona virus. Today, as I speak about my experience, I feel so grateful to be alive.
I started developing symptoms in the first week of April 2021. I went to a government dispensary near my office. They did an RTPCR. The results were getting delayed so much that I decided to get a Rapid Antigen Test. I tested positive. The people at the dispensary asked me and some other patients to wait in a corner. There were no chairs and I was tired of standing, so I just sat on the floor. As time passed, I started feeling weak but there was no response from the authorities
Staying at a rented place, I did not tell anyone about my condition. I was afraid I would be asked to vacate the room. Managing alone was really tough. I was dead tired, with a fever of 102 to 103 degrees. In this condition I could not ask anyone to come over.
Bijay Kumar Hembram
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