Editor’s NOTE: The names in the article below are not real for reasons of privacy. Everything else is accurate and true
Surviving the coronavirus disease when you are symptomatic is a feat in itself, much more when you are six months pregnant.
Such is the case of Grace — a bank employee in Bacolod City and mother of a six-year-old girl — who found out she’s pregnant with her second child during the Enhanced Community Quarantine period.
She continued working in the following months taking extra care knowing that she belonged to the vulnerable sector and in a high-people traffic workplace.
Her pregnancy is as old as the virus and the local quarantine periods as they change from ECQ to other downgraded statuses. And even with much care and protection, her ordeal began when she started feeling sick — nightmare from the symptoms and anxiety and nightmare from discrimination in the community.
On Aug. 2, Grace had itchy throat and lost her voice, then she had chills in the days that followed but no fever and, eventually, body malaise.
Grace and her husband, Mark, went to have themselves swabbed at the Philippine Red Cross Molecular Laboratory.
“Sept. 3 was my saddest birthday ever when I got an email showing I am positive of COVID-19,” Grace said. Mark was negative of the virus.
Next day, she still had chills with fever up to 38.5 degrees and worsened body malaise. Her oxygen level was also getting low.
It was during this time when Bacolod-based hospitals had publicly announced they have reached full capacity for their COVID-19 -dedicated rooms.
The couple had been calling nurse friends and hospitals to secure a room because of her very sensitive situation.
“Despite my condition, I still managed to get up and bathe myself but when I was about to finish, I was already catching my breath. I called my husband and luckily, at this time, our nurse friend informed us that there was a vacant room at the Queen of Mercy Hospital, this after two days of trying to secure a room. We immediately packed and went to the hospital but we had to wait until the room was sanitized, she said.
Both her pulmonologist and infectious disease doctors were closely monitoring Grace’s condition and her x-ray showed she had bilateral pneumonia.
“I was very anxious, I cried so hard as my husband needed to sign a waiver that I would take Remdesivir, a trial drug for COVID-19, since my oxygen level was very low. But the medicine is no guarantee that my baby will make it,” Grace shared.
Grace took only five doses of Remdesivir in as many days instead of the supposed 10 since her body responded well with her fever and body malaise gone. Her oxygen level went up to 97, but, best of all, Baby Girl’s heart rate has been normal.
Even until today, she remembers the pain and aches she went through. While my tolerance level for pain is high, I could hardly bear it that I had to rely on analgesics for relief and also to keep my body temperature down. Even the tip of my fingernails was painful, she also said, adding that she can feel how things are for other pregnant women who have also been tested positive.
She was deeply concerned with her baby. “Initially, I thought of submitting myself to Caesarian section so that whatever happens to me, the baby would be saved. I was, however, told it was too early for that, especially that my health situation could worsen,” she added.
When Grace was about to be discharged after 13 days and awaiting result of her second swab and that of husband Mark, it turned out that she has recovered from COVID-19. He was tested positive this time.
Mark said he expected it since he never left Grace’s side since day one. He risked getting infected because he could not risk losing Grace and Baby Girl at the same time. He stayed in the hospital room with Grace as she was so weak and needed extra care because of her pregnancy.
Although Mark was asymptomatic, he was extracted from the hospital and brought to a quarantine facility.
“When Mark had to be transferred to an isolation facility, it was another emotional day for us. I was left alone in the hospital. Although I could already stand, I was still weak to do things on my own,” Grace recalled, saying she has been holding on to the motivating words of Mark and the pouring of prayers from family and friends, until she was discharged.
While there are people who helped them in many ways, there were also a lot who discriminated members of her household even if they had been tested negative, Grace said.
Neighbors shouted at members of her household to stay inside when they stepped out of the door to pick vegetables and other needed stuff, she said, adding that they told them to get inside even when our house was being fumigated and UV-sanitized.
They could not even buy their needs as people in the community would discriminate them and so they had to live by frozen foods for two weeks.
That’s why, Grace said, my daughter developed urinary tract infection from eating unhealthy food. “Kaluoy (it’s a pity), I have no parents to take care of me. Even my cousins, my Tito and my Tita did not come to visit me,” she further said.
But despite the discrimination and the anxieties, according to Grace, she had so much to be thankful for – for one that the quarantine facility provided adequate and healthy food for Mark since she herself could not go out yet and bring him his needs.
Being hospitalized would mean bills to be settled at the end of one’s stay, but their bill of more than half a million pesos, was mainly covered by the Philippine Health Insurance System amounting to P333,519 as Grace’s case fell under the Severe Pneumonia package.
The case-based payment of PhilHealth benefits can be availed of by any Filipino patient with confirmed COVID-19 case.
A COVID-19 confirmed patient, hospitalized with PhilHealth coverage and diagnosed with pneumonia, is entitled to as low as P43,997 for mild pneumonia to as high as P786,384 for critical pneumonia depending on the hospital category.
Grace is now on her seventh month of pregnancy and Mark “graduated” from quarantine in late September.
Looking back, Grace is thankful to God for making her and Mark survive. “I am praying that He will continue to protect us,” she said. EADoza, NegOcc Infocen-PIA 6
