Subhash Nagpal lost his father to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on June 9. Five days later, his mother too succumbed to the disease. Nagpal neither got a chance to bid them goodbye nor could he cremate them. In home-isolation after six members of his joint family tested positive for Covid-19, he had mourned the loss in solitude.
On Tuesday, Nagpal paid what he described as “shradhanjali” (tribute) to his parents. He landed at Delhi’s Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) and donated his plasma.The day happened to be 54-year-old Nagpal’s birthday. And it wasn’t a mere coincidence.
“Whenever there was a birthday in our family, my mother would perform a ‘havan’. Today there was no such ritual and I missed her badly. I couldn’t control my emotions and decided to pay back to my parents by trying to save someone else’s life,” Nagpal said about what inspired him to make the donation at a time when the city is grappling with a shortage of plasma donors.
Plasma therapy is a process in which blood rich in antibodies from a Covid-19 recovered patient is transfused into the body of someone still struggling with the virus to boost immune response to the virus.
Nagpal, an engineer by education and owner of an insurance advisory firm, lived in a ten-member joint family in Faridabad Sector 28. It included his elderly parents, his wife and son, his brother’s family and a domestic help. “We were a blessed, happy family that looked out for each other at all times,” said Nagpal.
{{/usCountry}}Nagpal, an engineer by education and owner of an insurance advisory firm, lived in a ten-member joint family in Faridabad Sector 28. It included his elderly parents, his wife and son, his brother’s family and a domestic help. “We were a blessed, happy family that looked out for each other at all times,” said Nagpal.
{{/usCountry}}Since March 19, Nagpal said, only the domestic help would leave the house once a week to bring essential items which would then be first left outside, and then ritualistically washed with turmeric water and dried in the sun before being used.
The family still has no answers to how the virus crept into their household, given the fact that their domestic help tested negative for Covid-19.
Nagpal’s 78-year-old mother, Kaushal who retired as a lecturer in Karnal, was the first to show symptoms. She had complained of weakness on May 31 and her subsequent blood test showed low platelet count. “We got her admitted to Apollo Hospital for treatment where her Covid test on June 1 showed she was infected with coronavirus,” said Nagpal.
All other nine members of the family, including the domestic help, got themselves tested soon after. On June 4, when the test results arrived, Nagpal said it hit them like a “tsunami”. Nagpal, his father, his wife, brother and nephew were found to be infected.
“Until then, the disease was just a statistic for us. We would see the numbers rise every day and think we were insulated from it,” said Nagpal.
The other five infected members of the family did not have any severe symptoms and went into home isolation, but on June 8 his father, 84-year-old Prithviraj, began having difficulty breathing. The elderly man, a retired lawyer, was admitted to a private hospital in Faridabad.
He passed away the next day. “It was so sudden and unexpected. We couldn’t even get to speak to him one last time,” said Nagpal.
Over the next five days, the family prayed for the recovery of Nagpal’s mother who was on a ventilator at Apollo Hospital. “I had last spoken to her on phone two days before my father’s death. The call had lasted a minute and all I could tell her was to pray to god,” Nagpal said.
But Nagpal couldn’t speak to his mother ever again. “There was no way to communicate with her. She was in the ICU and not in a position to speak over the phone,” said Nagpal.
Nagpal’s mother passed away on June 14, in the absence of her family. Like her husband, she was cremated by some relatives even as their two sons suffered the agony at their home.
The four infected surviving members of the family recovered from the disease by June 20, but life was never the same for them again. “There was a constant sense of regret,” said Nagpal.
It was in those days of sadness and gloom that Nagpal read extensively on plasma donation. “There are so many myths about the disease. But as I read more and more, I realised that it is a harmless process for those without co-morbidities,” Nagpal said.
On Saturday -- 14 days after he had recovered -- he dialled an NGO and offered to donate his plasma.
While they told him that he would receive a call soon, Nagpal on Tuesday morning drove to the plasma bank recently established by the Delhi government at ILBS in Vasant Kunj. “I saw relatives of some patients literally begging doctors to arrange plasma,” said Nagpal.
And true to what he had read up, Nagpal didn’t feel “an iota of weakness” after donation.
Dr Meenu Bajpai, professor of transfusion medicine at ILBS, said she was overwhelmed on realising that a man who had lost both his parents to Covid-19 was out to donate his plasma.
“He told me he had lost his own parents, but wanted to save someone else’s. It was a moment I felt inspired to work harder,” said Dr Bajpai.
Having experienced the how safe the process is, Nagpal has now requested his brother and nephew to donate plasma. “The doctor told me that I would be in a position to donate again after 14 days,” said Nagpal.