(Jamaica Star) Mark Brown* always joked about seeking refuge in the hills should COVID-19 reach Corn Piece Settlement in Clarendon; but when it did, the 23-year-old did not have the strength to flee.
Brown, now fully recovered after contracting the deadly virus, described the experience as his worst.
“I remember standing up and just feeling like mi a go collapse. I will be hot this moment and the next minute mi feel extra cold. Sweat run off a mi like a rain a fall. The test and the swabbing alone is painful and uncomfortable. Is way down inna mi head back dem push the sumpn and wind it. Trust mi, all of the people dem who no waan stay in, just the swabbing alone when unno get it a go make unno sorry unno never listen to the Government,” Brown said.
Brown is related to the 79-year-old man who was Jamaica’s first COVID-19 death. For a few days, he also stayed where the man was after arriving from New York.
Corn Piece was put under quarantine on March 19. The quarantine order was lifted last Friday. Brown tested positive on April 3 and was put in isolation at the Mandeville Regional Hospital.
“I had a very high fever, running nose, coughing and a very terrible headache. The headache alone make you head feel like somebody chop yuh in it or it a go explode. Mi nostrils burn mi like pepper. The doctors can’t do anything to help the headache or the pain that you are feeling so who waan stay pon di road can gwan make a fool of themselves,” he said. “The coughing nuh nice at all. It’s like the whole a yuh organs dem swell up inna yuh belly. A the wickedest ting mi ever experience and mi a wonder how persons in dem 60s and 70s going to manage.”
After he tested positive, he told THE STAR that he became depressed.
“When I just got to the hospital, I wasn’t eating and I was stressed but my mother and big brother were always giving me words of encouragement. There are times when I wanted to break down but they were always there to motivate me. I missed my family bad at the time and I was also mourning for my relative,” he said.
Also helping in the healing process were the hospital staff who Brown said were super supportive to him and others in isolation.
Brown said that he was reunited with his family last Thursday, but has not been on the streets.
“Right now people fraid a mi and scorn mi so mi don’t go anywhere. I stay to myself. I had a lot of friends and right now is just two friends alone mi have so that alone show you how bad it is,” he said.
*Name changed
