Haunted by death: a chronic kidney patient facing the covid-19

Abstract

Although it has become a “pandemic” (from the greek, pandemías, “all people”), covid-19 is experienced in different ways, with the risk of infection and preventive measures being not at all equivalent among the population. It is a multifaceted social process, the meanings of which vary enormously, especially among those with comorbidities, who are more vulnerable to the coronavirus. When analyzed empirically, covid-19 reveals a multiplicity of experiences and meanings, which place the (supposedly) universal categories of “pandemic”, “social isolation”, “death”, and so on. The biggest health and humanitarian crisis of this century therefore has many dimensions, dimensions that are produced in specific social contexts, according to varied subjectivities and practices. Thus, based on personal testimonies, this research brings to light the unique experiences of a chronic kidney patient, with the purpose of analyzing the challenges of undergoing hemodialysis before and during the pandemic, comparing the “passage” of a world without coronavirus for a world with coronavirus. Because understanding the impacts of the coronavirus on the life of someone who was already surrounded by some serious disturbance, allows access to another reality of covid-19, less global and more local, but as crucial as any other.