MY COVID JOURNEY (
PART II) …….. Dr. Digambar Naik
Lessons learnt
Here I was in covid ward, having talked and learnt so much
about it, to experience personally. I came inside confidently, started with full
treatment. The team was good, confident and comfortable. My journey began.
Doctor you will be out in the next 4-5 days was the assuring confidence that I
received.
Day I- was good. Oxygen requirement at 10
litres/ hour. I was comfortable but could not sleep.
Day II- was deadly, oxygen saturation
dropping, completely dependent on oxygen and was difficult to go to toilet. I
used to quickly go to toilet and come back to get my saturation dropping at
70-80 %. There was no oxygen in the bath room.
I had started with a dose of 40mg methyl prednisone three
times a day, which subsequently was stepped upto 120mg, 8 hourly along with
antiviral, antibiotics, LMWH and hell lot of other medications.
Day III- Another bad day with no sign of
improvement. In the evening of third day, I forced myself to go for a wash in
the bathroom. It took me little more than 10 minutes, I somehow managed to
change my clothes. There was no support to physically help me, as no relatives
were allowed in covid ward. I was giddy, blue but somehow managed to come on
bed and start oxygen. My SPO2 at this time was 57% and I paused to think of the
patients I had resuscitated at that SPO2 and for the first time, I knew all was
not well. The next best thing I asked for a mobile oxygen to be used whenever I
went to the toilet and the hospital obliged. For the next few days I never
allowed myself to be disconnected from the oxygen.
Next few days, my body was bloated, inspite of a very good
output. The sugar skyrocketed, inspite of never being diabetic. My eyes could
not close even for a moment, vision blurred. I was very irritable to myself as
well as with the rest of the medical and nursing team. I kept in contact with
my friends outside who insisted on starting high dose Vit C. Dr. Anande sent me
the full protocol. But the local team was scared to start this. I was
worsening. Finally, Dr. Lenny and Dr. Anande personally spoke to the team and
convinced them to start Vit C 100gm/day. This preparation is not available in
Goa but somehow Dr. Lenny managed to send the same to my room. The first dose
was started at 8pm and I saw the whole team of doctors in Covid attending the
inauguration of Vitamin C drip. After the second dose in early morning I had a
smile on my face. I was feeling different & I knew my deterioration had
stopped. Just before this my 3rd CT Scan showed a score of 10/25.
And it was a different story after this. I took some time but
kept on constantly, though slowly improving and finally went home after 14days
of admissions.
A great experience, finally all that ends well is well.
Too many lessons learnt in the care of covid patients- right
from the mishaps that can happen from the supporting staff to the final care
team…….after all, being an acute care physician a medical experience of 40yrs,
ability to learn, to research has a lot to contribute to the new learning
process. This learning is different by being a patient yourself.
But the basic and the most important lesson in the management
of covid patient which none of us should forget.:-
1. Please use high dose Vit C as the first drug for admitted
serious patients.
2. Total dependence on very high dose methyl prednisolone ( I
got 120mgx8hrly) leads to very serious
internal changes. Yes, we had to save lives but today we have more medicines in
our armamentarium.
3. A number of covid centres have shown good results only
with Vit C.
4. The antiviral drugs don’t work after ten days.
5. the Indian Medical teams and the support teams are very
good. There is an extreme need for the hospital’s supporting and operating team
to understand and be with doctors in their effort. I was lucky the whole
hospital was involved in my treatment and they all co-operated and did very
well. Kudos to the whole team. You matter a lot.
Dr.Digambar Naik
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