How it started
On the third day after my covid19 vaccination at the vaccination centre on 5 July, I began to feel unwell. I believe I caught the virus there as I later found out that four others at the centre tested positive. The Covid symptoms that began appearing included a rapidly growing temperature, persistent dry cough and a splitting headache with loss of full taste and smell with fatigue and muscle aches were thrown in. I was becoming weaker as I began to lose appetite and ate little. I almost collapsed in the bathroom and had to rush to my bed with my hair and body dripping wet.
As my husband was away in another country and unable to return home for about one and a half years because of travel restrictions, I decided to talk to my neighbour, a medical doctor. Alarmed, she immediately insisted that I drive to her hospital for a Covid19 swab test. At 1 a.m on 13 July, the hospital rang to report that my test showed I was infected with almost a whole load of the virus, suspected Delta variant.
I was advised to get hospital admission immediately. This started a round of telephoning. Doctor friends were also trying to assist in the hospital hunt for a bed. But every hospital we rang replied, “Sorry, our wards are full.” Meanwhile, I was burning with fever and convulsing with body chills. Then God came to the rescue. A doctor at a private hospital reported, “I recognised Ms Siew’s name. We have a vacant bed. We will reserve it for her.” Later, my doctor neighbour told me that if I were left alone at home, statistics show that more than 700 people were brought into hospital dead for the past three months.
Journey to the brink
In the hospital, I was deteriorating rapidly. I could hardly speak in a feverish delirium, for every time I tried to talk, my ribs went into a painful spasm. Taking a breath exerted excruciating pain on my chest muscles. My tender ribs prevented me from breathing, yet I desperately tried to get air into my lungs. I felt like I was drowning in water.
I was aware of the nurses and doctors discussing in worried whispers, ‘Her oxygen level is dangerously low at 88. The blood inflammation level is escalating”. I asked the infectious disease specialist if I would need ICU treatment. He replied, “Possible, anything can happen. We just don’t know how nasty the virus can be. We are monitoring your progress very carefully.” I began to wonder if I would make it as a number of my Christian friends had succumbed to the infection. One week lying in the hospital, with only three tiny increments in my oxygen level, my temperature hit 39.9 °C. I felt seriously unwell. The room around me was spinning. I began to fear I would become an added statistic on the Covid19 death count.
My thoughts
So many thoughts crisscrossed my mind. But amazingly, I was calm. I prayed, “Lord, I am not afraid to die because I will soon be with you in my heavenly mansion. Anyway, all of us have to die one day. What is important is to be with you in eternity as You promised.”
Then another thought came, “but I am not ready to go”. I prayed fervently “Lord, there are so many of Your assignments which I have not finished. I want to finish them. Besides Lord, I have not seen my husband and children for the last one and a half years because of the lock-down. God, please allow me to see them”. I then raised my weak arms into the air and repeatedly pleaded, “God, please pour your healing on this poor woman….I am not ready to die…. please heal me.”
A visitation
Suddenly I felt a gust of warm air flowing through me, touching my outstretched arms down to my body. Slowly I felt strength seeping into my whole body. I knew the Lord was healing me. I could breathe. Then I fell into a deep sleep.
I was awakened by the excited voice of the nurse who had come to remove my oxygen tube to check my oxygen level. “Your blood oxygen level is almost back to normal! Such a quick turnaround, from 80 + to 96. That’s amazing!”
I sat up. I could breathe. I could speak. I knew God was healing me the moment I felt the warmth and His close presence.
After ten days in the hospital, I was discharged with no lung scarring or any side effects on the rest of my body. Although I was still unwell and it took another two weeks to regain my energy after losing 7 kg., my experience has taught me many precious lessons. I have become ever more conscious that God is near me when I call on Him. He is my healer, my fortress, my stronghold, my real and living God. I may not understand why things happen, but I will put myself in His hands whatever happens.
