It has certainly become extremely difficult for me to put a label to the year 2020. It has been one of the, no, the most bizarre year of our generation. Change is frightening and very uncomfortable, and we were all thrown at the mouth of the lion...or bat, I suppose.
The year started off with a lingering feeling of an intense upcoming calamity. Where once we had taken the oath to make the year 2020 our best when the clock struck 00:00 at new year's eve, they were easily dismantled very soon after. The year 2020 was supposed to bring along a lot of prosperity and be a step towards a new era of humanity, we were left to revise history and relive the basics.
To much disappointment, the year brought along disease, hunger, struggle, carnal behavior, sorrow and death. Things that we hoped to leave behind. As bright were the nights on new year's eve, as dark did the days coming forth had become. Now we had smiles, hidden behind masks.
Just like everyone else's, my year had started off with lots of planning, hopes, dreams and aspirations. Things were looking bright all around, including myself. The news of a lingering pandemic had begun spreading, just like the virus.
I was in UAE, then. My birthplace. A country far away from struggles and weaknesses. A country which, from a young age, I wanted to serve. I had plans to further my medical career, facilitated by UAE. I had already begun practicing as a GP (general physician), everything was taking its course as I hoped it would.
Around March, we were in a worldwide pandemic. My shifts became harder and an economic recession had started to settle in. We witnessed a widespread short sizing in companies and business closing down. The pandemic had taken the shape of war, and the casualties looked similar to one.
In March, the government had started funding quarantine units for infected and first-contact victims. National security was placed in such locations. By the month of May, we had several COVID-19 testing centers erected in several locations per city, isolation establishments were put in place with around the clock clinics in them. Patients received treatment, isolation, food and regular check ups around the clock - for free.
I, MBBS doctor, had a specific background in respiratory diseases and was soon rotated to one of the core isolation units. 5star and 4 star hotels were substituted as units. We had been given full back up by the ministry of health and the government in terms of support and funding. At the peak, my unit held over 360+ positive cases in the hotel/unit.
We were busy. Very busy. It was the month of Ramadan, where we Muslims fasts from dusk to dawn. We were hungry and weak. But strong in our hearts. I still remember how tough it had become, and the staff was more friends than colleagues, it helped a lot.
We were busy with receiving patients, preliminary assessment, approving or rejecting patients, follow-up, transferring and referring patients, as well as regular check ups. We did 9 hours shifts, and sometimes even volunteered to do 24 hour shifts, just to tackle the growing numbers.
All this while staying away from our families. Isolating our own selves, and keeping our health as well as our patients' health as a top priority.
A big shout out to Red Crescent UAE, they played a massive role in making sure we had what we needed at any time. From drivers to expensive medicines, we had it all in our disposal. They were always just a call away.
Even with so much support, in such a well-to-do country, things were looking dire. A few of my colleagues and I had started living off of our savings and we donated every single penny from our salary. We decided it was a time in human age where our wages were better spent by giving it to others than keeping it to ourselves.
It was all worth it. I believe it was. When my people needed me the most, the people of my own community needed me the most, I was there for them. Irrespective of whether I got anything from it or not, I was there for them, serving the country I always wanted to, standing along the people I grew up around.
I saw people cry, weep and curse, inside the clinic and outside. People who got infected and people who go effected by the virus in other ways, I saw them. With my own eyes. I saw devastation. I witnessed it. I fought it.
But I am glad I was there spreading smiles in the way I could. By providing a shoulder to those who lost someone, by providing treatment to the ill, by working along other professionals to bring an end to this madness and sending off cured people with a massive smile on their face and the hope to start working again and living a life as close to normal as possible.
It made it all worth it. Didn't matter that I couldn't see their smiles behind their masks. But it was worth it, that I could, myself, send them home happy and healthy. Didn't matter that a few of my dreams and aspirations weren't on the table anymore. The things that once mattered to me, I could do those, at the least.
This is my favorite picture. My favorite memory. Sending off a group of healthy laborers. People who don't have it so good. Good men. Men that work in harsh sunlight, spending every ounce of energy in their bodies, sweating till their glands are dry, just to provide for their families. My favorite picture. One filled with smiles and hope. One filled with the bright light of a normal future.
2020: The year of spreading smiles.
This is how I want to label the year.
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