Professor Simeon Kayiwa of Namirembe Christian fellowship and proprietor of Kayiwa International University, Namirembe, was one of the COVID-19 patients who suffered when the nation ran out of oxygen in mid-June.

He shared with Maureen Nakatudde about his experience with COVID- 19 and how he narrowly survived death.

 When I never had energy in mid-June, 2021, I thought it was fatigue.   Even though I had other symptoms of the deadly pandemic like flue and cough, it never occurred to me that COVID-19 had really seized my body. In fact, cough and flu were the usual ailments I experienced since childhood and I would ignore them sometimes. I would treat them with simple cough expectorants and herbals and then I would be fine.

But on the third day, I felt weaker.  That night, I called a doctor in Mengo hospital to run tests and find out what was going on in my body. There were three days of monitoring and I was not getting any better.  He thought it was Malaria and typhoid, which he treated, but I got worse.  Since I had been managing diabetes for some time, he considered it a major problem for my health.  He, therefore, referred me to a diabetic expert. The expert said it was likely to be pneumonic covid.   At Mengo hospital, the results revealed I had COVID-19.

Admitted

I was immediately admitted to the hospital in the high dependence ward. It is for patients who are not in a dangerous state but are very ill. While there, the full face of COVID-19 begun to manifest. I never had energy. I had difficulties in walking and doing most of the simple things. I lost appetite for food and water. 

Oxygen runs out

On my third day in the hospital, the worst happened!  Oxygen ran out in the whole nation.  I was among the patients affected. On my hospital bed row, I witnessed COVID-19 patients dying under my gaze. On my side, the doctors were telling me to continue breathing even though oxygen was not there. Luckily enough, the doctors brought in an ambulance to evacuate me to another hospital.

Prior to that, the whole night, the doctors had called 26 hospitals, but they never had oxygen. That is when they landed on Medipal International Hospital in Kololo. At first there was no bed. Then by the grace of God, one patient got discharged.   Finally, there was only one bed! All of the four COVID-19 patients competed for it including me. I won the bid, but I did not know why.

Meanwhile, when I left Mengo hospital the doctor told me that those who had remained behind in the high dependence ward and in ICU all died. I was the only survivor.

Kololo

At Kololo, the two and a half weeks I spent there mounted to a bill of sh38 million. I was on oxygen for three days and I stabilised. The doctors administered medicine through the injections because I never wanted to swallow tablets. I took 12 injections daily on the arm. In supplement to the doctors’ medications, I used herbals to recover. I was using two teaspoons of mululuza, a spoon of mixture of eucalyptus, mango and guava leaves.  I also used moringa powder.  Albeit that, I had four doctors available to me the whole night and 10 nurses.

My death Announcement

While there, I never thought of death. I was thinking of coming back to church and carry on with God’s work. I was also thinking of organising the university. It was a fact; people were dying, but that was not my problem.  They told me that they announced my death on radio, television and social media. It was absurd because I was still alive. Some other people knew that I had died. For me I had faith that it was not my time.

The bill

 I borrowed some money to pay off the bill. I paid  sh20m and the sh 18 million was paid by friends. Since I felt fine, I kept pestering the doctors that, I did not have to stay in the hospital.  They could monitor me at home but they insisted that I keep in the facility. After two and half weeks, I was told that I was free from all the signs of covid 19. I was discharged.

Advice

I advise people to stay on guard because COVID-19 is still among us. They should observe the Standard Operating Procedures of washing hands, wearing masks, sanitising and also add to their diet bitter leaves like Nakati and Jobyo for strong immunity.