Popular UK based Zimbabwean journalist, Maynard Manyowa, has spoken about how he almost died in Zvishavane in December 2020.
Writing on Facebook, Manyowa said:
This time last year I collapsed in my mother’s hallway in Zvishavane.
My mom Judith and wife Mutsa bundled me into a car and drove me to Dr Greg Mataka’s hospital.
They sped, braving the rain and unforviging potholes. It was desperate.
No other hospital in the town wanted to touch a UK resident in respiratory distress. I had been turned away at every institution, day after day since the 26th.
I was in a bad place and in terrible shape on 31 December 2020.
They say when they found me, I wasn’t breathing.
At the hospital, I continued to deteriorate and just after midnight / new year, my wife Boipelo was told she needed to fly to Zimbabwe urgently, to possibly say her goodbyes.
Nobody celebrated the new year in our family. People held their breadths. Afraid of a nightmare unfolding before their eyes.
With oxygen levels below 65% and falling, doctors were worried my chances had fallen below 50-50. It looked the end. And while the fight was gallant, there was a pragmatist approach to matters – anything could happen, at anytime.
That night was likely the worst.
I am told that my mother sat by my bed side on New Year’s morning.
She held my hand all night as Zvishavane’s mosquitoes ravaged her body.
She had fallen ill herself but laboured along, son in hand, likely praying.
I was out for a while, although I have recollections of some thoughts from the time and these are a story for another day.
Dr Mataka battled, to save me, at huge personal risk and cost.
That was a terrible time for me and everyone who loved me.
It was so bad that by the time I came around I couldn’t bath or eat. I would have brief periods of outright consciousness and most time was spent, out of it.
At this point I relied on Boipelo to bath me – she took over the task from my mother when she arrived. I couldn’t walk without assistance. I needed help eating too.
Even after recovering, it took weeks to be able to do simple tasks. Till today it amazes me how I lost so much function so quickly. In some ways it puts things into perspective – everything can be taken out of your hands so quickly.
As 2021 comes to end, I can only hope to never experience that pain again.
As fate would have, in 2021 I would contract Covid several other times but never to that level – although I was hospitalised again in Malawi.
The year eventually evened out, even though so much was lost. Like my baby sister Israella.
But in the end, so much ended up right. Yet nothing can escape the terror of new year’s eve 2020- 2021.
I wish everyone the best here in 2022. I hope nobody ever catches that nasty disease or at least as nasty as I did on New Year’s day 2020-21.
