• When the ashfall covered her neighborhood, she thought things would get better soon, and then the pandemic came

• From a volunteer assisting evacuees from towns affected by Taal Volcano’s eruption, she moved to the medical frontlines where she worked as a radiologic technologist

• In March 2021, she tested positive for the disease and was quarantined for a month

• She said there will always be fear but what she fears the most is the possibility of getting infected again and bringing the virus home

From the eruption of Taal to being in the eye of the pandemic, a young frontliner has faced fear in many shades and has learned that the only way out of the dark anxious tunnel is to keep working.

Aisa (not her real name), 23, lives in Lipa, Batangas where the eruption of Taal Volcano on Jan. 12, 2020 had blown tons of ashfall on her neighborhood. It was a devastating event that brought much anxiety, she recalls, one that she thought would be over when Taal would settle down.

"We weren't heavily affected but the ashes are all over our neighborhood," Aisa said, recalling that she had to go through the thick ashes in their place every day during the volcanic unrest to get to her workplace.

"I was able to lend a helping hand to my friends who were highly affected and I also volunteered to assist evacuees in my alma mater in Tanauan that time," she said.

But just as the town was starting to get back to normal life, the coronavirus disease hit the world and caused a pandemic. It threw the world off guard.

As a healthcare worker, Aisa was among the first batches of frontliners who took care of the sick. She’s been at the frontlines since then.

Aisa is a radiologic technologist. She belongs to a hospital's diagnostic team which is dubbed as the "eye of medicine." They may not directly work in an emergency setup but they are the ones who first look into suspected COVID positive cases through X-ray machines every day.

Now that the country is experiencing yet another surge of cases amid the entry of new variants, this young frontliner believes that this will not be over soon, not like how she initially thought that the outbreak in 2020 will not last long.

"And it saddens me, because this is not over yet, and will not be over soon. Not being a pessimist though but with the new variants, it will take much longer to find a cure," Aisa said.

“We are the ones that take chest X-rays of suspected and confirmed COVID patients, during their assessment in the emergency room and also follow-up X-rays when needed," Aisa said.

She recalled that the pandemic actually started slow in their area during the first community quarantine. No one was allowed to go out, causing the drop in the number of patients for X-ray.

But a few months later, the non-stop work on the frontlines began. The pressure and workload eventually took its toll on Aisa. In March 2021, she tested positive for the disease.

"I got quarantined for almost a month and it was really hard to cope because I had nothing else to do. And (after) a month of being quarantined I hurriedly got back to work, and we're really kinda used to it, handling patients not knowing if they're positive or not. We are just being extra careful and always sanitizing the exposure room for every patient," she said.

While working now "feels like a normal day at work" due to the familiarity of the situation, she admitted that the current surge has pushed her team’s working hours due to lack of manpower.

"It's inevitable to make sacrifices with this kind of work as a healthcare worker especially in this kind of situation. It’s hard to spend time with my family because of my responsibility and also because of the risk I bring because I always handle COVID positive patients," she said.

She said there will always be fear but what she fears the most is the possibility of getting infected again and bringing home the virus.

But I’m staying firm in my job, it’s my responsibility to help people in the fight against the pandemic, the young frontliner said.