COVID Chronicles: “Manza’s Fight”
Because so many people have seen major changes in their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tonight News Five launches a new series, COVID Chronicles. In our first installment, we feature a man who was at the forefront of the COVID fight when the pandemic first began to affect Belize. Doctor Marvin Manzanero, a quiet administrator, suddenly found himself thrust into the public spotlight – an instantly recognizable face addressing apprehensive Belizeans about the disease and what they could do to protect themselves. He was a reassuring presence for thousands. But then, in December, the doctor became the patient. Despite his debilitating symptoms and fears about not surviving to raise his sons, Doctor Manzanero also managed during the fight for his life to achieve yet another professional goal he had set for himself years ago, proving that he might have been down, but was certainly not knocked out by COVID-19. Marion Ali has more in “Manza’s Fight.”
Marion Ali, Reporting
At the start of the pandemic he was dubbed a hero for his hands-on approach and daily appearances on Ask the Experts – a Government of Belize Facebook program, designed to explain the COVID pandemic and to answer medical questions submitted in real time from members of the public. But then in December of 2020, the same disease that Dr Marvin Manzanero tried so hard to protect Belizeans from catching, caught him. Despite the meticulous measures he took of wearing two masks, keeping physical distance from people, and constantly sanitizing his hands! At first his symptoms were mild, he said,
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Recovering COVID-19 Patient
“I do recall my first symptom being just an itchy throat so-to-speak on a Friday and then just general fatigue, but then I had been fatigued for many days so I didn’t think that that was out of the norm.”
Manzanero said he immediately isolated himself from his family and after that weekend he went to take a COVID test. The result came back positive; one week after diagnosis, more severe symptoms took over.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“I was suddenly under the shower and felt like I was gasping for air. That had never happened to me before. I was very short of breath very suddenly. In the bathroom there is a mirror and I remember staring at myself in the mirror and realizing that I was in trouble. I felt like I was looking at the face of somebody who’s having a myocardial infarction, like when I’m on the doctor’s end. I call it the face of death. I felt I was really, really sick.”
By the following day, his heartbeat was racing, he said and the results of a CT scan on his lungs the day after were very telling. He needed urgent hospitalization, and then transfer to Belize City for tertiary-level care.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“When you see the CT scan and realize that as a clinician, what you are looking at and that things – I mean when you go in an ambulance from Western Regional to Belize City, you realize that you might not be coming back alive. And I was very much aware of that. You don’t get to say goodbye to anybody.”
Once inside the COVID ward, Manzanero said he kept close tabs with his two minor sons.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“I took a photo every day around the same time, trying to have a happy face, trying to comb my hair, you know, look presentable if you will so I could send it to him. You know I had been leaving, going to work, sometimes leaving before they were awake because I would leave very early; when I came home they were already asleep. The Sunday that I was in the hospital exchanging messages with him I thought that I probably had talked with him and communicated with him more than I had done for weeks or months before I became I’ll, simply because of I was always at work.”
And then, in the throes of his battle with COVID, the mental anguish kicked in when his ten-year-old messaged him and asked a question he could not answer.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
One message that stuck with me and I didn’t respond was when he asked me “When are you coming home?” And I realized that I didn’t have an answer. And his next message because I didn’t respond was “Daddy, are you there? What are you doing?” And my response – because I still go back and review that text maybe once a week at least – because it teaches you something every time you read it – was that I was doing breathing exercises.”
Manzanero did have to do breathing exercises to rehabilitate his lungs that were severely compromised by the disease. And after spending seven days and shedding eighteen pounds, he was released, having overcome the worst of the attack.
In retrospect, Manzanero told us that he realized the time he had sacrificed away from his two boys for the sake of work was something nothing and no one could replace and that the time he does have with them now is immeasurable.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“That is something that nobody is going to be able to pay you back. I mean that’s – it has no monetary value. You know, all the time lost, if you will, that’s not going to come back. So I think that that puts you down to the human level.”
But what was almost superhuman was he still kept on with his studies for a Master’s of Science degree in Global Bioethics with Anahuac University in Mexico. He felt philosophy and medical ethics were weak areas of certification in Belize. It had been his ambition to pursue these for a decade before his illness.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“The days after I was diagnosed, since I was really not doing anything, just confined to one bedroom if you will, I still was handing in my assignments. That Saturday I was due to hand it in – the assignment that’s a weekly one. I didn’t because I was on my way to the ICU. They asked me if I was going to need any kind of follow-up – eventually if I was going to – and I said no, I want to keep ahead.”
He did keep ahead and in June, he successfully completed his Master’s program for which he will receive certification in December, notably one year after COVID almost broke his stride. But until then, he still struggles every day, trying to perform little challenges like climbing a flight of stairs while still struggling to return his health close to, if not where it was before, when a Marvin Manzanero was known for his endurance and stamina in long-distance marathons. Remarkably again, the fighter in him presses on…
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“I am able to run three miles now. I hope to enroll for the Placencia half- marathon in December, even if I walk, that is going to be there.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Marion Ali.
Doctor Manzanero encourages the families of surviving COVID patients to support their loved ones as they tread the sometimes long, slow road to recovery.
