Sunita

Brief Outline:

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Indian
Background: Sunita is an ovarian cancer survivor and a writer. Sunita experienced Covid while recovering from ovarian cancer. 

More about me...

Sunita first heard about Covid on the news. At the time, Sunita thought “oh this isn’t going to affect me.” Then things started to become more serious. For example, Sunita saw people wearing face masks when she went for a surgery to remove her ovaries in February 2020. She also remembers people wearing their hair in nets and hand sainitising stations. As this was a health care setting Sunita thought this was normal. However, shortly after, more and more people started wearing masks outside of hospitals. 
 
Sunita felt like the first lockdown did not affect her much since she was at home for around eight weeks recovering from surgery. She says, “I was already in my own lockdown.” Sunita’s doctors prescribed a course of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. This worried Sunita because the chemotherapy would weaken her immune system, therefore increasing her likelihood of catching Covid. When she went for this treatment she also found it uncomfortable because her husband was not allowed to be with her. However, she does say that the hospital beds were spaced far apart so she was able to take her mask off which was a relief.
 
Sunita was told to stay indoors and ‘shield’ because she had just had surgery and chemotherapy. One day she felt really unwell and in a lot of pain and she thought it was from the cancer procedures. However, the pain was so bad she felt obligied to ring an ambulance. The doctors did various tests and sent her home with some medication to help with her pain. On the way home, the doctors rang her and said “you’ve got Covid and you have to shield.” Sunita was quite upset over it, she said, “I’ve got chemotherapy, ovarian cancer, and now you’re saying I’ve got Covid.” However, she felt lucky that she recovered from Covid within a week.

Sunita didn’t have friends or family in the local area who could help her. Her father-in-law travelled a long way to bring her food.

I remember my father-in-law, who is from [place], having to go to the supermarket and what do you call it, bringing us some food because we didn’t have any family in [place] or any friends that we could call on really.

Sunita heard in the news that deaths from Covid were higher among people of colour.

I didn’t want to go back to the hospital because I was convinced that I had got the Covid from when I was in hospital. And I remember a lot of people saying to me that I was very lucky that I hadn’t ended up on a respirator because I know that, as a person of colour, I don’t know, there’s a term, BAME, whatever you call it. I don’t mind the term I guess it’s how, how you’re labelled but I remember seeing on the news that the rates of people dying from Covid is higher if you are a person of colour.

Sunita felt anxious about the prospect of getting Covid again.

That I mean they’ve got this vaccine but, as I said, I think I’m still paranoid that I would get it again, I know that sounds, I think because I’ve been through it before, if that makes sense, I’m kind of like, oh do I touch this surface. I should be wearing a mask. I need to keep two centimetres away from the person, I shouldn’t be touching my face, kind of thing, if that makes sense. Oh, you know, we shouldn’t let our dog go near that dog because that dog might have Covid and pass it on.