Corona Diaries - 8

Wednesday April 15th

Day 4 Jaber Hospital

My shortness of breath was still bothering me, as was the fever. This was the fifth day of continuous fever. The cough was getting to the point of beyond irritation. I could feel that my whole throat and ears and neck being dry and stiff. I could also feel that my nasal passage was dry and stuffy yet I didn’t have a runny nose. I guess that’s what corona makes you feel like. Walking to the bathroom made me exhausted and I felt like I just wanted to lie down.

My chest x-ray was repeated and I wasn’t very happy with it. I felt like there were small infiltrates in the bases but I kept showing it to all my friends and they convinced me that it was normal. My saturation remained at 99% so I chose to believe them.

The days were starting to merge into one other. Nothing exciting was happening anymore. My laptop decided to stop working that day and I started crying. My father joked that corona hadn’t made me cry; yet a broken laptop did. I wasn’t materialistic at all. It was just that blogging had become something I looked forward to everyday and all of a sudden the instrument broke. I cried not because of the laptop, just because it was something that made me happy in this purple room. I really don’t like purple by the way. Orange and purple are not my colours. I’m a peaceful pallet kinda girl, pale blues and pale pinks are my colours, but I generally live in black and grey clothes.

I wonder what I’ll make this post about today. I have so many beautiful people in my life that it’s difficult to choose who to speak about today. Let me share one of my favourite poems with you.

I carry your heart with me

I carry it in my heart

I am never without it

anywhere I go you go,

my dear;

and whatever is done by only me is your doing,

my darling

I fear no fate

for you are my fate,

my sweet

I want no world

for beautiful you are my world,

my true

and it's you are

whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart

I carry it in my heart

― E.E. Cummings

I would like to dedicate this post to A.

We have not always been close; we’ve grown up fighting for the majority of our childhood and teenage lives. We weren’t even that close when we started living alone together for 5 years in Scotland. We used to fight for days and not speak to each other. Remember when you’d fight with your siblings and then spend days and weeks in silence. He was the king and I was the queen of the silent treatment. I never thought that someday he would become my best friend, my secret keeper; the one person that I would go to for any sort of advice.

I can’t pinpoint a single point of time when our relationship developed and matured. Love has always been there definitely; you innately love your siblings despite everything that goes on. You fight with them but you stand up for them if anyone comes near them. I’ve always been protective of my brothers, being the eldest. Anyone comes near my brothers and I would become a fighter. No one can even say anything bad about them in front of me, let alone hurt them.

Over the years, A has become my travel buddy. We shop as well as absorb culture together. My vacations are always spent with him. We watch shows and go to movies together. I have a very close relationship with both of my siblings and I am very grateful. Brothers are what sisters lean on. When you have a brother, you know that you will always be protected; you are never alone. And I’ve been blessed with two. Well, actually three guys in my life if you include my father, but he gets another post just about him.

A is the kindest person. He tries to act nonchalant but he has the purest heart and the kindest soul. You know the people that try to act mean but they really aren’t. He’s one of them. He is honest, sincere and a loyal friend. He would go above and beyond his comfort zone for his family. A is very moody, so we used to always fight because of his moods. Myself, I’m very sensitive and emotional; so you can tell that it’s not a very good mix. We have learnt to adapt with our differences. Now our fights last seconds rather than days. We don’t give each other the silent treatment anymore; we’ve grown beyond that.

A has always been there when things went wrong, he’s always stood by my side and helped me stay strong. He cried when I cried and laughed when I did. We have long conversations that may not make sense to anyone but they make complete sense to us. He makes me laugh when everything else doesn’t. He’s one of the funniest people I know. We have daily video call conversations and he acts and sings to make me feel better whilst I’m an inpatient. He may not always be by my side but he’s always in my heart.

No one is as blessed as me, with a brother like A.