On March 11, 2020, the WHO announced COVID-19 as a pandemic. Days later, on March 14, a state of alarm and home confinement were declared as a measure to stop the uncontrollable growth of infections. The feelings of the population were clearly divided between the protection provided by staying at home and the danger of going out into the outside world with Covid. The infection paralyzed the world, forcing it to stay at home, except for those professions that were essential, like mine. 

The information load, or rather the daily misinformation in those first days and weeks, generated terrifying fear, incessant deaths and the lack of protective material worsened the situation. My world was divided between the balcony and the hospital. Among the many negative emotions unleashed by the beginning of the pandemic, FEAR was undoubtedly the great winner: it stopped the world and brought it to its knees. As a healthcare professional, you take risks every day in your work, but you are neither accustomed to nor prepared for those lack of certainty that generate uncertainty and lack of protection. 

 I recycled and disinfected the FFP2 masks. I put a clothesline of masks on the balcony; one for Mondays, another for Tuesdays, another for Wednesdays, another for Thursdays and, the last one for Friday. The hospital didn't have any. There weren't any, there simply weren't any. I paid up to 12 Euros per unit on the internet. And other times they didn't even arrive after paying for them, scams everywhere. You know, unscrupulous parasites emerge when things are worse for us... 

 I isolated myself at home alone, because the real fear was contemplating the possibility of infecting your family, especially your elders. For weeks, I saw my mother through the glass of the door of her house. In those days, the birds became a metaphor for enviable freedom, which flew past my balcony... The applause at 8:00 p.m. on the balconies was really exciting. The empty streets, the sealed-off kindergartens, the highway to the hospital completely empty, and the excessive silence, was as strange as it was terrifying. But without a doubt, those who bore the brunt of this dark period in history were them, our beloved elders. 

Today, and with the infection almost resolved, I confess that in all my years of work I never experienced such fear. I had to do something, I couldn't leave home every morning for work with that fear and that anxiety weighing me down. And always with the doubt present, will it be today when I get infected? Faced with such a new fear, I also had no resources, I only knew that I couldn't continue like this. I had to do something, and then I said: "fuck it", and I turned off the TV, the radio, and all communication that had to do with the damn pandemic. And then, I began to breathe without that lump in my chest... March and April 2020, UNFORGETTABLE. 

Dedicated to all the colleagues who have lost their lives doing their job in this pandemic. 

There is no shipwreck that does not leave remains...”