‘Diary of a COVID-19 Patient’: A Baguio doctor’s journey

It was a harrowing way to start one’s 61st year.

Dr Elizabeth Macliing-Solang, a respected OB gynecologist in Baguio, spent her birthday last April 24 giving away personal protective equipment made by the famous Narda’s Weaving to her colleagues at the Baguio General Hospital and at the Department of Health-Cordillera.

On April 25, she was diagnosed with COVID-19 and had to be immediately confined at the Infectious Disease Building where she gave away PPE days before.

“It was my first time to be admitted at the IDB,” she said later.

“This building used to be the Contagious Disease Pavilion when I was an intern at BGH. This was where the psychiatry ward used to be. When I entered the IDB, I immediately had flashbacks of the psychiatry ward patients we handled during internship: patients behind bars, shouting, laughing and crying.”

Solang would be confined for 16 days inside the IDB.

“I have been through three Caesarian section procedures, a thyroidectomy, dilatation and curettage, hysterectomy, and endoscopy-colonoscopy but all these procedures combined are nothing compared to my COVID-19 experience,” she said.

The psychiatry ward history of the IDB came back to haunt her, for example.

“The long days of isolation definitely took its toll on my mental well-being. I had anxiety, panic attacks, depression and self-pity,” she said (READ: [FIRST PERSON] Conquering the unknown: A young Filipina’s COVID-19 journey) 

Thanks to Dr Solang, she was able to compile her diary entries during those 16 days into an engaging book that she self-published.

Diary of a COVID-19 Patient is a short book of exactly 100 pages which you can read in one sitting. It can be your guide on how to survive your own battle against the coronavirus (God forbid!) and also a reference on how to understand and help heal those going through it.

It is not a book written by a layman. Aside from Dr Solang, her three children, daughter-in-law, and son-in-law are also doctors.

We follow her journey from the disbelief of being among the first frontliners to be diagnosed with COVID-19, to the guilt she felt of putting her barangay on lockdown.

She also gives us tips on what to bring while in total confinement.

“I go through my things needed for confinement: clothes, beddings, towels, extension cord, pocket wifi, notebook/pocket diary, Bible, table mirror, chargers, laptop, medicines, sewing kit, personal hygiene kit and some books.”

The list would grow during the first days. This would include coffee, rhinestone art, and even dance shoes.

The entries are informative, detailed, and presented matter-of-factly. She would tell you the importance of Zoom prayers and dancing in her small cubicle.

Because of the ennui of isolation, she got the numbers of her fellow patients and they would message each other as a sign of solidarity.

She also interviewed the orderlies and nurses who came her way and got to know about their lives. They inspired her to publish her book to raise funds for them. The book is sold out and is on 2nd printing.

Also included as an inset is the algorithm of her contacts 10 days before her result came out. It showed the primary and secondary contacts like a thread diagram, a testament of the exhaustive contact tracing system that made Baguio Mayor Benjie Magalong famous.

You would think that the journal would become tedious in the end but we see how Dr Solang almost lost it as the days passed by.

There are the constant bouts of crying, cleaning the room to get rid of the virus, real and imaginary, and the constant fear that things would turn for the worst.

Getting to know more about the coronavirus helped her but so was drawing her inner strength to finally win the battle.

In the end, she read the speech that she had been constantly writing in her head to keep her sane. And as a sign of the strength of her own will, she did not tell her family that she is going home and drove the car that she left at the hospital compound to surprise her grandkids. – Rappler.com