November 6, 2021

Yesterday, the IATF started to announced Metro Manila is under Alert Level 2. It still have guidelines but now they are allowing children outside. They even impose 50% limited face to face classes in selected school. Are we little by little, getting back to normal or we are little by little getting back to be exposed by this lethal virus that changes our life in a glance? I do believe wearing mask will still be there but in some countries like China, Bhutan, Sweden, New Zealand and Hungary, citizens do not wear mask anymore. Mask free makes the vaccine seems effective in those countries. I hope our country will cope up too.

I do not have any wish but to make our lives improve for year 2022 and we able to overcome difficulties and problems we all are facing. For that, let me reminisce the traumatising memories this Pandemic gave me and my family, and for sure you are too. Don't ge me wrong, those ugly memories are still part of who I am today. It makes me a person who have strong faith in God.

March 2020

To be exact, March 13, our company president gave us a town Hall meeting. He discussed what is Corona virus, how it spread, how we can be affected and how to protect ourselves. I was like shaking in my chair. I was listening but fear was covering my whole body. It is first that I will experience pandemic and even I haven't experience that during that time, I know how hard it is for us, especially to poor people.

March 16, 2020, I was advised to be part of the skeletal team. I was selected because she believes I can do the job well and my house is near the office. We started wearing mask too that day and we packed some of the things of the office because there will be times that we were not allowed to work at the office. We also have work from home set up.

March 18, 2020, the start of skeletal Workforce, we're we are only 18 people at the office where originally we are more than 70 people working in the office. We have company shuttle. We are picked up near our houses to work, and pickup from work to our house. We start to work at 7am and the go home at 4pm due to 6pm curfew. The streeta and road was a ghost town. We were always in a hurry to go home due to we don't have complete protection and also toxic and stressful because we are doing the job out of 5 people per person. I have no idea how we mange but we were always struggling.

Everyday, the news is all about number of deaths, hospital capacity, serious cases and number of medical doctor, nurses and Frontliners are decreasing due to Covid19. People, who lost their job are having anxiety. They are seriously worried about their everyday expenses, what food to eat, what kind of work to do. I am grateful that my company still continue of service as we are part of the medical team. Even the Grocery time is limited and the que of people lining up is long. Truly, it was not normal and cringy. I can't sleep at night and I hate waking up in the morning.

However, people at home have something to do. They really make themselves busy instead of being depress. Tiktok app became popular. Everyone seems to have a TikTok account, either for self watch or for sharing their original content. We, the Frontliners of the company even made a TikTok content out of toxicity. Our company president joined us.

Good thing, we have hazard pay. My brother cannot work at the office because their office was closed. I able to cover his share of budget at home and I save a little for myself. With sincere prayer to God, we able to surpassed it.

It went out for 4 months that way. The month of July, people at the office that were on Work form Home setup get back to the office little by little. July 12, Sunday I felt sudden headache, I cannot open my eyes. It was a sharp pain that even pain reliever cannot help anymore. My sister massaged my head but the pain was still the same. I got ill. I went back in the office after a week. Thursday, July 23, while I was tested for Rapid Test, they found an IGM on me. IGM is an antibodies that are present in our body and it means we have infection. I was advise to have RT PCR test to make sure what kind of infection it is. July 24, I went to PGH for swab test. July 27, I received the sad news, I have Covid.

I isolated myself from my family and I have to be honest, it was not easy. It was so difficult. It affects my Mental Health. Kdrama became my outlet and I become serious with my faith in God. It was exhausting. I was disappointed by the local government that handle my situation as instead of being confidential, the whole neighborhood knows that I am infected. I hate what they've done to my family. If only I can get out during that time, I really went out and hug them one by one because I was so angry. I able to surpass and got healed. August 10, I was covid free. Good thing my family didn't get infected. I started to take care of myself due to trauma.

September to November, everything seems to be okay but still the serious cases fluctuates and increases. We had a good Christmas and New Year Celebrations. Just a simple one but we are all grateful our family survived it. The panic change our mindset, as we are not complacent anymore and we make sure we have a budget.

Year 2021, still there were lockdown situations. The economy has its downfall. There are still death incidents and even increasing number too. Problems were always there and I am starting to get disappointed by the government. I know it is harder for them as they need to decide. They need to do a decision for the welfare of all but there are cases of inside job that makes the people doubt the start of virus. I strongly believe it is man made and a certain country is responsible. It makes me believe, it is all about the money.

June 30, I received my first dose of vaccine. One by one my family get vaccinated too. Now we are all completely vaccinated. Wearing face shield are required indoors and face mask is the new normal. Good thing, when I started to take care of myself seriously, I haven't been ill or experience any kind of symptoms. Our company requires us of nasal swab test and rapid Test to filter out those who have infections, to avoid them to infect others.

As I am writing this, it loosen up a little and now children are allowed to get out, but I wish they are completely vaccinated first.

The Lesson and Realization of Pandemic

Even I need to be positive that we will able to surpass this, we are still not nearing of ending it. Variants of this virus keeps on adding day by day. Good thing doctors and scientists are still studying the virus. This Pandemic crushed every single person on this planet. We all experienced the hard way. I just hope we learned a lot from that experience.

If you asked me, it leads me to having Version 3.0 of myself. I thought I will go insane because of depression. It did attack my mental health. I even questioned God why it is happening to me. I realized problems getting bigger and bigger but these problems too are making us stronger and stronger. We are tried and tested in time and it will never stop. We just need to fight and survive.

Are we getting back to Normal?

The answer is, I don't know. What is normal anyway? I guess we are having a new normal. We just learn to adjust to the big change and always pray to survive everything. There were instances of Pandemic in the past year but now it became part of unhealthy lifestyle. Soon we will treat this Covid /pandemic in similar way. Let's just not give up!

Before I end this pandemic realization I want to thank my Sponsors for giving me support and chance to be a writer in this platform. Kamsamhamnida!!

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