Written by: Labanya Sikdar
Constant nausea and a slightly late period. A period, which usually arrives with painful cramps, fails to show any sign of its arrival this time. With it comes the most obvious anxious question: Am I pregnant?
I had been sexually active with my male partner the previous month and according to my period tracking app, pregnancy was a possibility, based on the days on which I had had sex. As a 21-year-old undergraduate student, the fear of an unplanned pregnancy had always made its way to my list of top five worries. It might sound a little strange, but as someone who has suffered from anxiety from a very young age, a distortion of reality is something that I have to go through all the time.
I had been using the same app for quite some time now and I know how my body functions. My partner and I always use protection to avoid any mishap. I have very painful periods and they are hardly ever late. Due to my anxious nature and sexually active life, I check the app often and it has always shown a pattern, which had now suddenly disappeared.
Over the next few days, in spite of my anxiety, my period does arrive. However, it is a bit different this time. Unlike other months, my periods does not bother me this time with cramps at all. I don’t feel much pain and the flow does not look as it normally does. In addition to that, it is way shorter than its usual five-day course. Not only does my nausea stay, it also increases in intensity. I lose my appetite and it starts interfering with my academic work. Till now, I had been venting out my worries to my partner, but I realised it was time to visit a doctor.
The doctor asks me about my period and after an examination, tells me that I have very low pressure and am underweight. I begin to take the prescribed medicine. The nausea goes away, I feel better for a while and begin attending my classes regularly.
All seemed fine until one day, during lunch, when I realised that the dal I was eating had no smell and very little taste. A realisation dawned upon me. There were no questions left to be asked anymore. A doctor comes to visit the house that evening and confirms what has been the ‘Fear of the Year’. I test positive for Covid-19 the next day.
Over the next couple of weeks, I suffer from symptoms that had, up until that point, seemed to have affected only other people. It had now entered our home. The severity of this reaches a limit where I fail to get out of bed for two whole days. I do not get physically sick very often, but this was a whole new game. I begin sleeping through the entire day and days merge into one another without any sign of improvement of my health.
After a whole week, I start feeling stronger, but it is the loss of two senses that I miss the most. My anxiety makes me think of another irrational scenario: what if I never get them back? I experience complete loss of these two senses and realise how much I had taken them for granted. So far, my family had taken all precautions — we had been taking multivitamins, carrying sanitisers around and of course, wearing masks. We weren’t going out except when absolutely necessary. However, the virus had been cleverer and managed to find its way in.
After that, the road to recovery has not been very smooth. Although my sense of taste is back, my sense of smell is still missing. As I sit writing this almost a month and a half after that scary late period, I feel my sense of smell is still a little compromised. My menstrual cycle, however, has gone back to its normal course. After I recovered from Covid-19, I learned that one of my friends had also experienced the same nauseous symptoms before the first warning signs. I really wish I had known it at the time. Knowing your body well is perhaps a good way of spotting any warning signs. I would like to urge our readers to take care and stay safe out there.