She spared no second thought in coming out to the public as the Philippines’ patient 878. Now on the mend, COVID-19 survivor Iza Calzado looks back on the ordeal she had to face as she finds strength and hope in second chances
An actress, television personality, Gen.T honouree, and a staunch body positivity and self-love advocate, Iza Calzado is a true example of an empowered woman. Through She Talks Asia, an organisation she co-founded, she has helped change the way Asian women perceive themselves, specifically in the self-esteem department. As she is a dynamic and spirited personality, one would be hard-pressed to picture Calzado—who is well-known for playing a queen with special powers in a popular fantasy series—as anything but full of life. But no one is exempt from a pandemic, not even the young and the healthy.
On 12 March, Calzado began to develop flu-like symptoms. What started as a general feeling of being unwell evolved into a dry throat and cough. Concerned, she set an appointment with her doctor, who sent her home with a prescription and instructions to be mindful of any symptomatic progressions. When she developed a fever the following day, Calzado braced herself for the worst. “I did not know if I could have been exposed to someone who had COVID-19, but in the back of my head, I knew that were was a strong possibility that I might have it. The fear was there, but so was denial; I kept trying to downplay what was happening,” she shares.
Barely a week after she contracted the fever, she was hospitalised on 20 March for pneumonia. At this point, it was imperative that she get tested for COVID-19. Her results came back a week later, cementing her as patient 878. Furthermore, her lungs were infected by a bacteria called Acinetobacter baumannii, which has a high incidence in immunocompromised individuals, contributed to the worsening of her condition. She had trouble both eating and sleeping, and often felt stressed and anxious.
“When you’re in the hospital, you take things one day at a time,” she says. “There will be good days and there will be bad days—it is a roller coaster ride. I was fortunate to be in a good hospital with amazing doctors and nurses taking care of me. I was not in complete isolation because my test results did not come in until halfway through my confinement, which was why my husband [Ben Wintle] was able to stay with me. I was too weak in mind, body, and spirit to do things on my own; I would have really struggled if he wasn’t there.”
Her husband, family, and friends were the backbone of her support system; their love and prayers helped her through her darkest days. “When I was in the hospital, I was not completely ‘there.’ I had my phone with me, but it was just too much for me to have to respond to people—I had so little energy at the time. My loved ones were constantly reaching out, but there was also an outpouring of support from strangers. There are still so many messages that I am yet to respond to, and I am trying my best to get to as many as I can, but I would like to take this opportunity to tell everyone who has been so kind that I am so grateful.”
Her attending nurses, too, did their best to ease her fears, with one even saying, “Ikaw si Sang’gre Amihan, kaya lalaban ka [“You are Sang’gre Amihan, which is why you must fight this”],” in reference to the much loved character she portrayed in the fantasy series Encantadia. And so she, too, did her best to be there for them, asking them about their own experiences given their roles as frontliners in the battle against COVID-19. “There was this fellow who was trying to put an IV line, but my veins just weren’t cooperating that day. He works in the ER, and he shared that he doesn’t even go home anymore because that would run the risk of possibly bringing anything from the hospital to his family,” she recalls. But there was good news on the horizon. Less than a week after she tested positive, she got retested and the results had come back negative and she was finally free to go home.
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