It started with a tickle in the throat, then a persistent cough, and that is when Brenda Cherotich - up until today referred to as Patient No 1 - decided to get tested for Covid-19.
Cherotich, an electrical engineering graduate, said she found out she had Covid-19 when Health CS Mutahi Kagwe announced the first positive case in Kenya on March 13.
"I connected the dots when he said the first case had been confirmed in Kenya and it was a 27-year-old lady," she said.
Cherotich, speaking during an interview with Citizen TV's JKL show on Wednesday, said she started receiving calls from friends saying that the CS was speaking about a positive case which sounded like her from the description.
Cherotich also said she was sure she was the first case being spoken about when a nurse tried to keep away from her.
She said the first thought she had was that she would not live for long after contracting the virus.
But on Wednesday, Cherotich was a different person, a young woman confident of a bright future and with a message that Covid-19 can be beaten.
Dressed in a white top and a wide smile to accompany it, Cherotich narrated the mixed emotions that accompanied the realisation that she was the first Kenyan to contract Covid-19.
Chronology
Cherotich first suspected she might have Covid-19 after getting a 'weird' cough.
Having travelled from the US, through London and to Kenya, Cherotich contacted other passengers on the plane she had travelled on and one woman said she had a 'weird' cough as well.
This made Cheortich go to Mbagathi Hospital.
At Mbagathi, Cherotich said the customer service attendants didn't think her symptoms were serious and advised her to go to Kemri.
"I insisted I wanted to be tested because I had a travel history," she said.
Cherotich was then taken to KNH and tested.
After the test, the doctor told her to keep calm but didn't say much.
Later that day, CS Kagwe gave his address on the Covid-19 situation, announcing the first case in Kenya, which turned out to be her.
The following couple of weeks in isolation were full of anxiety for Cherotich as she moved between being emotional and worried.
She, however, says the hospital staff tried to give her hope, giving her examples of patients from around the globe who had fully recovered from the disease.
On Wednesday, Cherotich returned to her home in Rongai, and says she was greeted with positivity.
"When the hospital staff took me there, the guard asked them if they were bringing someone sick and when they said no, I was welcomed," Cherotich says.
She says she only got to learn Brian, her friend and the other patient who has fully recovered from the disease, had Covid-19, when she saw him at the isolation facility.
Brian is someone Cherotich says she only met about twice when he visited her family home.
Brian also thanked the government for treating him with care when under isolation.
Cherotich signed out by appealing to employers in the electrical engineering field to consider her for a job.
Her initial dream was to work for NASA, but she is content to work locally in the electrical engineering field.
