A Twist
V.I.V
AN UNEXPECTED TWIST
Everything was falling right into place… Until everything came crashing down. All my hopes and dreams and goals? The balance I had worked so hard to find? Love, adventure, wisdom? None of that mattered anymore. Everything was now in disarray, disrupted. Leave it to the universe to wait until I got my crap together to throw us a friggin pandemic. I know, right? Way to make it about me. And yeah, you guessed it – I’m talking about our friendly neighbourhood virus: COVID-19.
We had been hearing about it right from the start, but when something’s talked about over foreign news pages, it’s not quite scary. In fact, we had our doubts whether it’d actually get to Europe. But then it did. And pretty soon, it was right at our doorstep. I remember the first time I saw the news of Italy’s hospitals being overwhelmed. The images of paramedics struggling to wheel patients into crowded wards and dumping hundreds of corpses into disposal trucks stayed with me. My stomach knotted, my heart raced – and suddenly, it was all too real. People were dying left, right and centre – anyone from kids to the elderly dropping like flies. Speculations about lockdowns and curfews, theories on how the virus spreads, concerns about long-term complications, vaccine research being fast-forwarded.
I mean, I’m sure you know all about it. I’m not gonna bore you with the details. Like how the entire planet had gone cray-cray and how toilet paper suddenly became the new currency. Or how #quarantine and #lockdown became the new it thing. The whole health versus economy deal. The loungewear revolution. The not knowing whether it’s a Sunday or June. The environment finally getting a much-needed break – until the advent of disposable mask mass-production.
Overnight, everything changed. Cities fell silent, shops closed, flights were grounded, and the world seemed to pause as fear and uncertainty spread faster than the virus itself.
I remember going into a lecture room in med school for a class and coming out to find the entire building being dismantled. They were turning our med school into a makeshift medical ward. Mind blown. You can imagine the look on our faces. That was what our farewell looked like. Three years we had spent in that building. Whining, studying, hanging out, whining, having classes and workshops, whining some more. And that’s how we’d get to say goodbye. Being hurried out so they could get on with their job. Walking that corridor felt like leaving a piece of me behind. And lord knew what was gonna happen next.
It was simply surreal. Outside, the roads that are usually jammed with traffic were empty. Shops shuttered, cafés dark. I drove alone past streets where people normally swarmed, and for the first time, it felt eerily silent. A post-apocalyptic world in actual, real life.
For a long time, I had no aspirations, no ambitions. Then I had my awakening and suddenly it was all about the future for me. The destination, not the journey. Then I discovered what it really means to live and I started living in the present. I realised my life was happening right there and then. Not after I’d be done with med school, or after I’d become a surgeon. Just one blink and I’d miss it. All of it.
And that’s exactly how it felt when news of the virus started to spread, shortly before it too was spreading. All the plans I had made, the goals I had set, were suddenly shrouded in uncertainty. So was the idea that we’d ever go back to normalcy. My main issue could easily be summarised into one phrase: the photo of me with abs on a beach in Spain during our post-grad trip. Poof. Just like that, it was gone. No gym, no abs. No flights, no Spain. No med school… no post-grad.
University had been cancelled (who the hell would have ever thought I’d say something like that?) and we knew nothing about what was gonna happen to us. Of course, we knew there were bigger fish to fry at the moment. Crisis first, our futures second. True, and fair enough. But hearing talk of other countries fast-tracking their final-year med students to aid on the frontline whilst we stood there in the dark for weeks on end was a bit disconcerting to say the least. We had no idea whether we’d be having exams or not, and if we would, when they’d be. Not to mention the fact that since the hospital was now restricted to access, we couldn’t go in to practise and examine patients anymore, you know, being an infection hazard ourselves.
My god, that period was stressful. I swear we must have aged ten years in a matter of a few weeks. So much uncertainty and doubt. As final-year students, we were this close to being doctors, which meant we could have been used as assets. We offered to help out voluntarily until there’d be an update regarding our course, however that too came with a lot of bureaucracy. Our faculty would always, and without fail, let us know the situation was still fluid and that things were still evolving. Thanks, really helpful – no, really!
After what had felt like three hundred years, they let us know that we’d go back on the wards in smaller groups to limit exposure. Come June, we’d have our exams as planned – if the situation would remain under control, and that would be it. Might not have been the best we could have hoped for, but hey, at least we had something going on for us.
Knowing we’d be going back to hospital, all of us had to suddenly come up with new living arrangements. We’d be in a high-risk environment and the best we could do to protect our families would be to isolate and cohort ourselves together – at least until the crisis would be controlled.
Being still unemployed students came with some financial limitations, and it was at this time that the kindness of complete strangers came in to save the day. Free accommodation was suddenly available to most healthcare professionals by people who offered their own apartments and homes to the front-liners. When push came to shove, everyone seemed to pull through in whatever way they could. And so, over the course of one weekend, we came to know that we’d be continuing our studies and that we’d have to move out, and so we did.
And let me tell you, in hindsight, I’m so glad we had to. I got to spend one month with two classmates who then turned into flatmates and then practically family. Of course, we had no idea how long the whole thing would last, and so we were in it for the long haul. We learned how to fend for ourselves and how to kick adulthood’s ass. We were suddenly grown-up, mature adults with all the responsibilities that come with such a title.
Cooking wouldn’t be something I’d just do on a whim anymore. It was either that or starve or end up bankrupt on daily takeout. Doing laundry was new. You see, back when I’d be on an exchange or something of that sort, I’d usually dump all my stuff in the sink and wash everything with shower gel. It worked, but I wouldn’t quite call it doing laundry either. But now I had an honest-to-god washing machine. I gotta admit it was a matter of trial and error until I got used to it. My god, I’ll never be able to forget that damned hydrogenic blanket which took over two days to dry out simply because we couldn’t figure out the spinner setting. But then we did, and doing the laundry suddenly became somewhat of a hobby. I swear, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as hanging freshly washed clothes to Frank Sinatra. Perhaps my trip to Norway would have competed, but it wasn’t really an option now, was it?
Then there was the cleaning and the shopping and all the housework I’d taken for granted before I moved out. Oh, and maintenance! What does it take for Marius to change a lightbulb? A pandemic! But our rite of passage from flatmates to family wasn’t exactly as simple as co-existing together. It was the damned sink we had to unclog. But trust me, you don’t wanna hear about that particular ordeal. The things we’d have to endure to become doctors, right?
It wasn’t easy, but we were adjusting. As time-consuming as adulting is, we were still keeping up with everything else. We managed to keep up a good workout routine, we’d study and go to hospital, and we’d also find time to chill and hang out. Oh, and also to video-chat with Marco, in case you were wondering what had happened to him.