There was a time not so long ago when, for many in Mzansi, Covid-19 was something they watched on television. That’s no longer the case, with the virus having infected hundreds of thousands. Sadly, no fewer than 7 000 have passed on.

My family’s Covid-19 ordeal started in early July. My wife, who is a Grade 7 educator at a public school in Ekurhuleni, narrated something quite strange that had happened to her earlier in the day as she left her workplace. When public schools reopened in June, she took to keeping sanitiser spray in her car, which she would spritz each time she entered the car to minimise her chances of contracting the dreaded disease. But she finds the smell of sanitiser spray rather overwhelming and would immediately roll down her car windows. On that day, however, she could not smell anything.

My response was she was imagining things, that she was a hypochondriac. But my stance changed when we had supper later that evening. She could not taste the food, and that set off alarm bells. The following morning, she made a beeline for the doctor’s and was sent off to the lab for a Covid-19 test.

Two days later, I started coughing and experiencing funny headaches, but didn’t think I should seek medical attention. The symptoms worsened with each passing day and I eventually went to the doctor’s. She found that my body temperature was elevated and that I had a chest infection. She enquired if I had been exposed to a Covid-19 sufferer. I told her about my wife, explaining that she had been tested for the virus and was awaiting the results. She made a quick phone call to my wife’s doctor, who operates out of the same complex – a Medicross facility. Then followed a loud knock on the door, and the young lady who entered delivered a piece of paper with the sad news that my wife was Covid-19 positive. The doc requested that I be tested as well.

My symptoms worsened dramatically that night. What had been bouts of tension headaches turned into pounding monstrosities, and I started sweating profusely. Then followed multiple cramps and aches all over my body. If I caught any sleep that night, it could not have been for more than two hours.

At about 07:00 the next morning, my wife drove me to the lab the doctor had sent me for the test, but we were informed on arrival that they had stopped offering that service and we had to go to the nearest lab, about 20 km away. By that time my wife was quite ill, and we drove back home. I got tested the following day.

Realising that I would not be able to work that day, I got in touch with my boss, but assured him I would do some of my work for the following hour, before handing over to someone else. As I tried to stand up after that one hour, massive cramps struck me in both thighs, both calves and the left shoulder. I collapsed back into my chair. My wife, who was in the room, called our daughter and they dragged me onto the bed, where they massaged me. That did help.

Two days later, I suddenly started experiencing breathing difficulties and my wife, deciding not to take chances, called an ambulance. Half an hour later, I was in hospital, with oxygen pipes attached to my nostrils. After an examination, the doctor determined that my lungs were in superb shape and all my vital stats were within normal ranges. So, I was discharged, but with loads of medication.

As I lay in bed that Sunday night, exhausted and straddling dreamland and the conscious world, a terse SMS came through: I was negative. If you ask me, that’s a false negative: my symptoms and my wife’s over the past four weeks have been exactly the same.