From surgeon to survivor: How I emerged victorious out of Covid-19 crisis

Dr Rajneesh

‘Being challenged in life is inevitable Being defeated is optional’ - Roger Crawford

It was December 2019 when we first started hearing about cases of Covid-19 in China’s Wuhan and the following outbreak, leading to shutdown of the entire city.

Initially, all of us in our hospital and home believed this to be a disease happening to people consuming exotic foods and could never imagine it would come to India.

But everything changed in just a matter of months when the virus spread was reported from faraway European countries. On March 24, the Government of India announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown and suspended all domestic and international airline operations.

Now things were getting serious, but nevertheless we were sure Coronavirus would not spread in India as we had taken adequate measures well within time. But soon it rapidly started spreading across India making us realize that all those measures were not good enough. Thousands of Covid-19 cases started coming up from across the states and hundreds died every day.

Our hospital became empty and wore a deserted look. Soon, a wing of it was converted into an exclusive Covid facility. From being a surgeon performing 3-4 open heart surgeries every day, suddenly I had no work. Our lives revolved around just one word “Coronavirus”.

My wife, daughter and I are doctors. Being closely involved in patient care, we took extra caution and started following all the guidelines to the rule book. Then all of a sudden the sky fell on us when three members of my own family were diagnosed with Covid-19 and were admitted in hospital.

Despite testing negative when I got checked, I isolated myself for 5 days and resumed work and surgeries after that. After about a week when my family members were to be discharged, I started having fever with cough and cold. I got myself rechecked and this time tested positive. The initial reaction was of shock and fear, particularly after having lost one of my medical college classmates to the virus. Slowly the reality sank in as my fever and cough persisted despite treatment and taking Febiflu at home.

After 48 hours, I decided to get my inflammatory markers and X-ray chest done. The X-ray revealed bilateral infiltration and consolidation, following which I decided to undergo chest CT scan. Looking at my CT scan score of 12/25, our hospital’s head of radiology Dr Agarwal urged me to stay back in the hospital and get admitted. He told that patients with CT score above 18 had bad prognosis and those with 25 out of 25 never made it.

After waiting for a couple of hours in the emergency and making calls to the high-ups in administration, I managed to get a bed in the hospital as all the beds were full. Immediately Remdesivir, steroids and other supportive treatment was started. A flurry of thoughts from bad to worse crossed my mind. In the evening a bout of cough precipitated de-saturation and difficulty in breathing. I contacted my physician Dr Mishra and head of blood bank Dr Pathak who immediately arranged plasma from a Covid survivor. After getting plasma and fresh shot of steroids my saturation started improving and difficulty in breathing eased out. But a similar episode of de-saturation and difficulty in breathing occurred again and required another dose of plasma. It was a near death experience.

After getting plasma steroids and oxygen, there was some sign of relief and things started improving gradually. There was no fever, cough reduced and oxygen saturation stayed above 90%. I was discharged from the hospital in a week.

While in the hospital, I used to answer calls from my patients requiring urgent surgeries as well as those who had been operated by me and needed some advice. I resumed work as soon as the mandatory 7-day quarantine ended. I began operating as well to stay positive and keep my mind occupied in what I am best at.

The best lesson what my close encounter with coronavirus taught me is that when you are facing a crisis, you alone can get yourself out of this. And that your inner strength, your family and positive thoughts were your biggest strengths.

I strongly believe the good wishes of all the patients I have treated over the years helped me and my family to tide over this crisis. Also, I am not overtly religious but listening to chants of God gives you courage, strength and positive thoughts to fight the devil.

• Dr Rajneesh Malhotra is Principal Director (Cardio Thoracic & Vascular Surgery) at Max Super Speciality Hospital in Delhi