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My Fellow Kansans S3: Episode 3 Anil Gharmalkar, Jalon Evans-Gharmalkar And Tamarah Chancellor

Celia Llopis-Jepsen/Kansas News Service

A first-hand account of what it's like to be hospitalized with COVID-19, and how a family handled the situation.

The term "essential worker" covers a wide range of jobs that proved especially vital when Kansans were hiding out at home from the coronavirus.

Anil Gharmalkar of Oswego has one of those jobs: He’s a truck driver, and traveled across several states with trailer-loads of food so there would be meat on grocery story shelves.

It was on the road where COVID-19 caught up with Gharmalkar. He, his wife and his mother spoke with the Kansas News Service about how the virus wears down your body and your mind.

Jim McLean is an editor and reporter for KCUR 89.3. He is the managing director of KCUR's Kansas News Service, a collaboration between KCUR and other public media stations across Kansas.
Celia Llopis-Jepsen is an environment reporter for Harvest Public Media and host of the environmental podcast Up From Dust. You can follow her on Bluesky or email her at celia (at) kcur (dot) org.