EXCLUSIVE Simona, 24-year-old, recently diagnosed with Covid-19: “Let God enlighten your mind” they said, “the virus does not exist”. For me, the worst is not the pandemic itself, but the negation of it

When Simona shared her story on Internet a month ago, she wanted it to be anonymous. Today, she decided to speak openly about it because, she says, people don’t believe a faceless story.

Her name is Simona Chitoroaga and she is a social media specialist and copywriter from the Republic of Moldova. After she met with a friend of hers who was, without knowing it, an asymptomatic Covid-19 carrier, she contracted the virus.

She agreed to talk to G4Media.RO about the experience she went through.

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Rep: How did it make you feel when you were tested positive for Covid-19?

Simona: I could simply not believe it! I was the one respecting all the sanitary measures. The only times when I went outside it was to go to the supermarket and when I did so, I always wore a mask and kept a one-meter distance with strangers. I was really careful, maybe too much to be honest. For instance, I used to wash my hands so much that they looked like those of a 50-year-old woman.

Even so I contracted the coronavirus disease. It was on June 6, when a friend of mine, who was an asymptomatic Covid-19 carrier, visited me. Then, the first symptoms appeared 36 hours later during the night of 7-8 June with a dry cough, fever and fatigue. From there I was sure I had Covid-19. But surprisingly the symptoms mostly disappeared after 2 days so I told myself I was just paranoid. On July 10 the results finally came back positive.

With distance and hindsight, I feel lucky that it was only a mild case, but it was not necessarily easy. Since June 7, I had already isolated myself for prevention and when I was tested positive for coronavirus, I had to quarantine myself until a new test showed I was cured. But then, as provided by the State, I still had to isolate myself for 2 weeks more, again
… until yesterday. In total, my quarantine lasted 1 month and a half, almost 45 days, enough to get crazy. Yet, even if I don’t have the virus anymore, I feel that my body has changed. I have now a very different appetite, I sleep more, like I used to sleep 5-7 hours a night, now I often catch myself sleeping 14 hours.

Rep: How have you experienced the medical monitoring since early June?

Simona: You know, for me the worst experience with the virus was not the virus itself but feeling helpless. If the first doctor I saw was extra careful, she eventually went on vacation so someone replaced her. From that point the experience became terrible. When you just know you have a deadly virus you need to be reassured, to be told “all will be fine” but the doctor was cold. Point. So you just start panicking and get more afraid. He did not care about me, he did not know neither my name nor my medical problems. I think he was already busy enough with his own patients so he did not have time to explain me anything. Besides, the several doctors I saw in that period disagreed on the pills to take. I understand that every doctor has his own opinion, but you feel all the more helpless when you don’t know who to trust.

Rep: What are the reasons why you decided not to be anonymous anymore?

Simona: When I knew I was sick, I first felt ashamed as if it was my fault. Then, I also felt quite alone because I did not see many Covid-19 infected sharing their experience. So just a week after the symptoms appeared, I started to talk anonymously about my story on a blog called Blogul lui Eugen because I felt the need to. I wanted to emphasize the fact that nobody should be ashamed of that disease as long as they did not take any risks. They, We, are not responsible for being or having been infected.

But quickly, I saw answers of people telling that my story was faked and asking me if I was paid to speak about the Covid-19. They did not believe my story because it was faceless. Because it was nameless. So I decided to speak openly about it. One of the most symbolic comments for me, as an atheist, was “let god enlighten your mind because it does not exist”. I even thought that it was a joke before other people followed suit. But to be honest, I can understand them. Here in Moldova, the State and the media only point out numbers and remind us to wash our hands but we actually don’t know anything else about the virus.

Since I started talking about it, I have also discovered that the “community” of Covid-19 patients is broader than I thought before. Many people told me that they prefer to hide themselves since they fear to be discriminated in their professional career or in their social life. Even one of my friend told me that “we will never meet each other like we used to do before”.

Yet, we should not be afraid of speaking about it. I think there is a real social stigma with this virus.

*Note: Antoine Dewaest is working as an intern for G4Media.ro, enhancing the understanding of the Romanian society. He is studying at Sciences Po Rennes, France.

Foto: Simona Chitoroaga / Sursa: G4Media.ro