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It’s been about a month now since I was supposed to have traveled with

Eastern Airlines

on their inaugural flight to Georgetown, Guyana. Around the same time, many countries began closing their borders and international airlines were beginning to cancel flights abroad as the COIVD-19 virus was spreading. Like many others scheduled for that flight, we were determined to make this trip and were very disappointed when it was canceled. However, it was a divine occurrence why this happened which most likely saved my life. 

 
QUARANTINED IN BROOKLYN, NY
Three other members of the YBT team were scheduled to visit Guyana with me. We had hoped to blog, vlog, and record our experiences on the podcast. Our departure, scheduled to coincide with Eastern’s launch on March 19th. This was the same day that I first felt some peculiar symptoms which, at the time I did not associate with the coronavirus. 

 

However, I am asthmatic and I thought the symptom which began the week before I was scheduled to fly to Guyana was simply my yearly appointment with asthma, so I wanted to get a new pump before I boarded the flight to Georgetown. I visited one of the City MD urgent care centers close to my house to get a new pump for my shortness of breath because I thought the older one wasn’t working. It was this symptom that sparked my urge to call the doctor about 3 weeks later. But on this visit, they prescribed prednisone steroids and a pump and I thought I’d be alright. I thought I would’ve been hopping on my flight to Guyana, that Thursday, March 19th.

 
However on that same day, March 19th, I experienced an unusual spate of chills, fatigue, and night sweats which I associated with the seasonal flu because, after all, how could I have contracted COVID-19? Me? So, I self-medicated using TheraFlu and within a few days, I felt okay despite the mucus I felt building in my chest days later—which I would cough to expel.

 

On April 11th, six days after I saw my doctor and experienced one of the most unpleasant tests in my life, the COVID-19 test, my phone rang. It was then that I knew my results were in. The doctor on the other end said, without any hesitation “Mr. Cunningham, your test results were positive.” Truthfully I was expecting her to say the opposite. I had COVID. The beast that had been slaying men and women globally was now waging war against me, in me. It was in my lungs. At that moment fear tried to sneak in, but faith took over.

 

It wasn’t until the week before Easter Sunday that I solidified something was off.  I started to have more difficulty breathing and I resorted to raising my hands overhead—a technique I teach my vocal students during voice lessons. Something was abnormal. I had to check it out. So I saw my doctor through Telemedicine. He hinted at the test over the video call but told me to come in so he could listen to the lungs and if needs be, he’d administer a nasal swab test. So he did, on Monday, April 6th.
Moringa, Lemon, Cinnamon, Orange Peel, Fever Grass, and more… 
Today, I am much better thanks to God. Also, the five-day antibiotic treatment, which I believe attacked the infection that was settling in my lungs helped. Other than the prescribed medication and prayer, I also increased my dosage of Vitamin C to 4000 mg and continued taking multi-vitamins. Additionally, I started to drink lots of fluids and bush tea— tree, flower leaves, or tree bark boiled together and usually ingested as a tea. Some of the mixtures consisted of—cinnamon, fever grass, moringa, lemon, ginger, orange peel, thyme, clove, peppermint oil, trumpet bush. I also drank boiled garlic and ginger together or ginger and lemon.
 
Ginger and Lemon
In retrospect, I see how mysteriously God works. Again, I am positive that I had the virus from around March 14th or before. Had I traveled, if the flight was still on, I would have probably infected many other people along the way, because I didn’t think I was infected with it. My symptoms did not come exactly as described by officials. Also, Had I traveled I would have been extremely sick in Guyana and may not have been able to obtain the medication which treated my earliest symptoms. God is good and he is indeed a healer and protector. 

 

COVID-19 is real and it respects no man. Nevertheless, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to say that despite how horrible as it is, it can be defeated. So listen to your government and health officials. And hopefully soon, REAL SOON, rapid testing becomes the norm, because this is one of the only ways I see us returning to normal. It’s one of the only ways I see the travel industry coming back to normal quickly. Look at

Emirates Airlines

, they’ve implemented this practice. Maybe, if rapid testing was available at my onset, I would have known that I was positive then and would have canceled, on my own accord, my plans to travel to Guyana, ultimately putting fewer lives at risk. 

 

Nevertheless, I overcame it. You can overcome it. We all shall overcome this thing called COVID.
 
 

 

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