Popular Belizean entertainment promoter, Earl “Buddy” Brown, who resides in New York, USA, told Evan Hyde, Jr., on his Talk To Mi show on KREM PLUS on Youtube, that he was going on air, on the show, because he wanted to advise all Belizeans to make an intense effort to stay COVID-19 free, because the disease is an ordeal that is not to be taken lightly. Buddy was stricken by the disease some weeks ago, after his wife and daughter became infected with the virus, and he found himself almost at the brink of a medical emergency before he started regaining his health.
Mr. Brown says he also wanted to do the interview because he wanted to thank all the persons who sent an outpour of love to him and his family, and who prayed for him while he was going through the trauma of COVID-19, and because he wanted all Belizeans to know that they shouldn’t be scared of testing, and if they become infected with the virus, to not be afraid to share what they are going through. “There shouldn’t be any stigma to it”, he said, “because sickness is not something that people buy, and sharing your story could help others”.
Buddy shared that he hasn’t ever been a sickly person — that he rarely has headaches or similar ailments— and before he got the disease he was cavalier, and had been posting jokes about the disease on his facebook page. He said he felt that he would be the last person to catch the virus because he has been living away from the limelight for the last two years.
Buddy says that he can account for very little during the nine days when he was in the complete grip of the monster. He said it started with a headache. He doesn’t take aspirin or analgesics like Tylenol, so he placed a wet rag on his head to treat the pain. He said the headache got worse, worse than any headache he had ever had, and then he got a fever and pain in the joints.
Buddy said his wife tried every local remedy in the book to treat him —from a body plaster made out of flour (we also learned that she put cochineal on his head, slices of cochineal and potato and onions on his feet, and rubbed him with Vicks Vaporub). He said the only thing he remembers from that period is his wife and daughter waking him up to give him a potion made out of different herbs to drink.
He said that during the ordeal, which was much worse at nights, he hallucinated about Kobe Bryant visiting him, even though he is a die-hard Knicks fan, and the day before he started feeling better he had a vision that the Devil visited him and he rebuked him in a way that would have made Pastor G (Gentle) and Pastor Wade proud. He said he got up in the Devil’s face, made the sign of the cross like Pastor G would, and drove him away. Shortly after that encounter, Brown said, he started feeling better.
Buddy Brown said that while he was in the grip of COVID-19 he had no sense of smell or taste, and no appetite, and he refused to go to the hospital, but when he began to vomit, and could not hold down even a little food, he gave in to his wife’s plea that he seek specialist attention. At the hospital they gave him a test and an X-ray and it was found that he not only had the coronavirus, but he was also suffering from bacterial pneumonia.
Buddy said that after he had the first symptoms of the disease, 12 or 13 days would pass before he felt like having a good meal again. He said he doesn’t believe he would have made it if he wasn’t being constantly cared for by his wife, who took care of him even though she still had not recovered completely from her bout with the disease.
Feature photo: Earl “Buddy” Brown