By Anna Lee Mraz Bartra. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P]
My sister has COVID. It's overwhelming the feeling of adrenaline rushing through your body when you hear the news and immediately think the worst. The mind works like that. The idea, once planted spreads like a virus and you think not only of the worst that could happen to your sister, but your niece, your brother-in-law, her family. Panic, if you let it, takes over.
We've all lived through the constant and pressing confinement over the last year and a half. The loss of jobs for many, the stress of having your kids in distance learning and that, only the lucky ones who have that privilege, have to say it.
Distance makes everything worse, talking on the phone or through the screen will never replace the hug, the smell of the person.
My sister tells me she has lost her sense of smell, I can hear her voice hoarse and her breathing heavy. She and my 7 year old niece have isolated themselves in her room. We fear for the little girl. My brother-in-law has taken refuge at his parents' house while we all keep an eye on the evolution of this virus that has turned the world upside down.
The days go by and, luckily, my sister has no fever, her oxygenation does not decrease, and my niece is perfectly fine.
Thank God that vaccines exist. It is thanks to the vaccine that nothing serious happened to me, that I didn't infect my daughter, that my husband, who has serious preconditions, didn't get infected either. I truly say it a thousand times: if I had not been vaccinated, we would all be telling a different story," Maiala Meza said with emotion.
