My COVID Story

This is my COVID-19 story. Unapologetically, it's quite long.

I’m not writing this for sympathy or pity or attention - I’m writing this because I am totally sick of the complacency and disregard for the lockdown rules I’m seeing in the very limited time I leave my house and from what I'm seeing on TV and reading about.

Rather than sit and watch and hope people do the right thing, I’d prefer to share my story in the hope that someone somewhere listens, stops and thinks about what they are doing, who they are seeing, where they are going and perhaps takes it all a bit more seriously. It’s deadly serious and really scary - and if you're not careful, it will affect you.

About me: I’m now 43. I’m probably a stone overweight (ish!), I like good food, gin and wine but in moderation. In the main, I eat well, drink sensibly, play tennis a couple of times a week, work and am generally quite active. I am classified on my NHS covid record as ‘fit and healthy’.

I have no idea how or where I got it - I was just unlucky.

I began to feel unwell on Friday 4th December, was tested on 6th and confirmed a positive result first on 7th. I spent the first week at home. Initially, I had a cough and then the flu-like symptoms kicked in - extreme fatigue, whole body aching, the most excruciating headache I've ever experienced - far worse than any migraine I’ve had - and blurred vision. Apart from one day much later in my illness, I didn’t ever run a permanent high temperature, I didn’t lose my sense of smell and while I didn’t lose the sense of taste some textures of foods were off-putting. And then I lost my appetite. I knew I needed to eat but I just couldn’t.

On the morning of 9th December, I woke feeling very dizzy and sick. I sat up and could feel myself suddenly getting really hot as you do when about to be sick and I wanted to get to the bathroom. I stood slowly and took a few steps to the door…. and then a few moments, I’m not sure how long but probably no more than a couple of minutes later, woke up on the floor. I thought I had sweat running down my head but when i touched it, discovered it was blood. I’d fainted and hit my head on something as I fell. After composing myself, I crawled to the bathroom, hauled myself up using the loo and then the sink to steady me and looked at the damage. A deep cut on one side of my forehead. (As an aside, it was nearly 3 weeks later that I realised that in this moment when I felt so awful, blood pouring down my face - i took a selfie! I found it on my phone just before new year with no recollection of taking it or why!)

This resulted in my first two interactions with paramedics: Classed as non-emergency, the first arrived in about 5 hours. They checked me over, cleaned the wound, put a huge bandage around my head so I looked like Pudsey Bear (I have a picture of this too!!) and then did a full health check - ECG, blood sugar, heart rate, blood pressure, nerve reactions, listened to my chest and more. Bizarrely, they could do all this but none of the paramedics had done the wound closure course so they had to send for backup. The first team left and, 3 hours later, the second team arrived, glued my head, did a few of the same checks and then left.

The rest of that first week didn’t get much better. My appetite stayed away so I was physically weaker, I ached everywhere, the headache hadn’t gone, I was trying to drink but knew it wasn’t enough, I was so bloody tired and then I started to notice my breathing was getting laboured. I spoke to NHS 111 a few times in the next few days just to see what they thought but then by the weekend, it was getting quite difficult.

Among the questions 111 ask is whether or not you are able to look after yourself: If you were hungry could you go to your kitchen and cook a normal meal? Can you get yourself to the bathroom without feeling breathless.

I live alone and had been self-isolating because of the covid test - apart from deliveries of items and small plates of food that weren’t being eaten, by my mum, I was fending for myself.

By the Sunday I had to admit defeat and called NHS 111 again who then sent the third paramedic team. They arrived much faster and, after an assessment, concluded that I needed to go to hospital for fluids - he told my mum - who was outside when I left - that my chest sounded completely clear and I was just severely dehydrated.

Arrival at A & E was different - I was wheel-chaired through a bit I didn’t recognise into the ‘red zone’ where all the Covid patients are taken, immediately cannulated, put on a drip, had a blood test, had another covid swab test, I can’t remember a lot of what they did but there were a lot of people around me. When that was done, they took me for a chest x-ray and then I was put back in bay 12 in the red zone. Then they put me on oxygen - initially 2 litres a minute through one of those tubes that goes a little up your nostrils.

I remained there for about 14 hours - not because A & E needed me in there or they had plans to let me leave, but because there were no beds available on their Covid wards anywhere in the hospital.

My bed was directly opposite the nurses station which was fortunate because when the x-ray came back, the doctor, Matthew, was able to turn the screen round and show me the state of my chest: Pneumonia in all 6 zones of my lungs ( I didn’t know what this meant but it was basically just saying it was quite a severe case) and a mild case of pleurisy as a little bonus… not as simple as just dehydration.

Here’s a quick fact: I was told by one of the doctors that three weeks prior to my admission, there had ‘only’ been 15 covid-positive inpatients in the hospital. At the point I was taken to the ward, I was noted as covid patient 71. That’s how bad it had got and it was getting worse when I left.

At 2am, I was moved to Baird ward when a bed finally became available. I got comfortable and slept when I could but at that point I was on observation every hour so it was seemingly permanent interruption the rest of the night. The following morning, an early visit from Dr Babi resulted in my oxygen first going from 2 to 4 litres a minute as he was concerned about my breathing and then, by lunchtime, it went from 4 to 10 litres a minute. That’s delivered via a mask so it feels a bit more serious.

Over the course of the day I’d noticed the three guys in the bays opposite mine were all in varieties of conditions. John, opposite me - probably early 70s, didn’t really move or say much initially - he was wearing a mask like mine. To his right was Stephen- probably late 40s/early 50s: Nil by mouth and obviously poorly but was occasionally interacting with staff and making them laugh. To Stephen’s right was Anthony - late 60s maybe - again on a mask like mine and sleeping most of the time - he woke at lunchtime and dinner but that was it.

That first full day in hospital was awful. My appetite still hadn’t come back, it was loud, busy, permanent prods and pokes, blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen - I was tired and frustrated and really weak… and then the impact of Covid really hit home.

Stephen had been awake around dinner time. He wasn’t allowed to eat but the nurses had moved him around and got him comfortable and opened the curtains around him afterwards. I’d seen him move a little after they left him and then he fell asleep.

That turned out to be the last time he did.

An hour later when the nurses came to check on him, he had died gently and peacefully in his sleep. They pulled his curtains around and a few minutes later porters arrived to take him away. Our curtains were drawn around us - we heard the nurses transfer him to the porter's bed and then a long zip sound and then he was gone. The bay was cleaned and 90 minutes later, a new patient arrived in that bay. All necessarily clinical but truly awful to witness.

That night, just as sleep was setting in, Anthony let out a sudden and very breathless but loud call for the nurses who rushed over to him. I looked over and he was obviously in severe distress - his arm waving hoping someone would come to him. Within moments, the cardiac arrest alarm was sounded and 8 or 9 people rushed in, drawing our curtains as they passed and tending to him. Anthony passed away about 10 minutes later.

Both of the guys who died had Covid and one definitely had underlying health conditions but if you want a message that really drives the seriousness of all this home, witness that. It was horrendous. They spent their last days alone and I often find myself thinking of their families.

No one else died in my bay in the time I was in but at least 4 others from other bays did. They drew the curtains to the main corridor next to mine and John’s beds and secured them shut by trapping them in the door when it happened so we knew what was going on.

Day 2 on the ward, my breathing deteriorated further. I was moved first to a 15 litres a minute mask which was the maximum they could deliver from the pipe on the ward. Then I was put under the care of the outreach ITU team and was put on CPAP - a machine that basically blasts air into your mouth and keeps your airway open and lungs working. Over the next 24 hours, I had 3 sessions with that - each lasting about 4 hours I think. Between treatments, I had to wear my oxygen mask.

Throughout this whole time, If I needed the loo, I had to be assisted there and back and I couldn’t walk the 5 metres from my bed to the bathroom without wearing a portable oxygen mask, the nurse carrying the small cylinder.

When the ITU team were a bit more confident that I could manage breathing by myself, they stopped the CPAP treatment and I was told that unless I needed the bathroom, I was to lay or sit still and keep the oxygen on. It was, essentially, an order to not put my lungs under any additional strain. At that point I was so grateful that I didn’t have to be intubated but CPAP was the last stop before it would have come to that so it was bloody close.

I did everything I was told. Finally, after 8 days of not eating and losing probably around a stone, my appetite came back. For the rest of the time in hospital, I had a fairly basic diet: Cereal for breakfast, Sandwich followed by jelly and ice cream for lunch, something hot followed by jelly and ice cream for dinner - it was a texture thing - and my throat was still sore so this was really soothing.

My mum and step-dad had dropped some stuff up to me so that finally I could get clean and change - with permission from the nurses, I was assisted to the bathroom with my newly-refilled (so we thought) oxygen tank by my side. I was told to go very slowly as I would become breathless very quickly. 15 mins into my attempting to get clean which would have been agonising to watch as I was basically moving in slow motion, the tank ran out. Queue mini-panic attack. I pushed the call bell and then opened the door and called for the nurse between breaths - when I eventually made enough noise, John from the bed opposite noticed I was in trouble and called a lot louder and sent them my way. By the time they got there I was on the floor finding it almost impossible to breath - they got me up and into a chair, hurriedly found another cylinder and then helped me get dressed and back to bed with my regular oxygen supply. At least I had clean hair and new PJs!! That triggered more obs and a nurse sitting next to me for a few hours to make sure my breathing normalised - I slept for about 5 hours after that ultra-marathon attempt!!

There were no other major dramas after that - my doctor and consultant had agreed that they would let me home when I could, at the very least, walk from my bed to the bathroom unassisted and without oxygen so it was just a case of waiting for my body to heal. I’d been on a daily does of steroids, the anti-viral drug they are giving all covid patients, paracetamol for the headache, antibiotics for the lung infection and daily injection into my stomach to prevent clots from forming. I had five of those - the first one hurt enough that I remember it vividly - the other 4 weren’t painful in the slightest.

I spent 8 days in hospital. They stuck to their word of letting me go when I could make that walk and although they would have liked me to have stayed another 24 hours, I was a lot better and they really needed the bed. The last thing my doctor said to me was ‘you’re leaving here with the lungs of a 70 year old - it’s going to take months to fix them - be extra careful’

When I left the ward, my mum was waiting to take me home. Sat in a wheelchair outside the ward, mum greeting me, I burst into tears - She gave me a hug I will remember forever and she cried too. That’s not the last time tears flowed in all of this but in that moment, the relief at walking out of there (well, wheeled out) was so overwhelming. For mum, it was the relief that I made it out of there at all: Those closest to and around you that live the experience from the other side have a horrible time of it - they worry endlessly and they can’t do anything let alone visit.

When I got home, despite the rain, I just wanted to sit in the garden for a while.

I spent the next 10 days in self-isolation - when you leave hospital, they assume you’re still positive and you have to follow the rules. I had the occasional visit - very socially distanced - me inside, visitors a few metres away on the path outside - Some very tearful visits from my children who live with their mum but who I hadn't seen for weeks. I got daily hot food deliveries from mum which was a huge pressure reliever.

I was home in time for Christmas but Christmas didn’t really happen. I share a birthday with my dad on 29th, who visited from a distance but obviously none of the normal celebrations - coincidentally, John who was opposite me in hospital shares the same birthday and I was delighted to get a message from him wishing me well and letting me know he had also been allowed home too - he’d spent 33 days in hospital, the first 14 of those he was in critical care - and then new year (which I don’t particularly like anyway) was also spent home alone.

My 10 days isolation finished in the new year but it’s not a flick of a switch and you’re suddenly ok again. It just means you’re now safe to go back into the risky world around you! I haven't really done that.

I’d been told to walk daily to aid recovery of my lungs but needing to walk and being able to walk are very different. The stone I lost - that was mostly muscle and it really impacted my legs. A stagger round the block - about 1/4 mile - was taking 40 minutes initially and it’s taken me nearly 3 weeks to get to the point where I can walk a couple of miles again now but it’s really tiring - occasionally I lose my breath but it’s not too bad.

Physically, my lungs are slowly healing, and I have colour back in me. I get occasional blurred vision or spots in front of my eyes but it doesn’t last long. The lost weight seems to have come back to places I didn’t lose it from which seems massively unfair but it’s one of the things I can address later!

In myself I feel a lot better but I’m not recovered.

I’ve had to take at least January off work to focus on recovery - the lung health is the top priority but there are other things too. One of the longer term impacts of covid is brain-related. I have little memory of the latter part of 2020. Putting dates to things from about August onwards is quite difficult, and I have no memory of some things - we did around 20 online event production jobs in November, for example, but I can only remember 4 of them. I've been told of conversations I had which I can't recall, I remember things that happened in the days after I went into hospital and apart from the fainting episode, not a lot before. It’s really patchy. I’m told and I’ve read that it might come back but it’s not certain.

I have real trouble with brain fog and concentration: This post has been written in stages over 3 days, mostly from notes I’ve made and with a little bit of what I can remember thrown in. I watch movies in 25-30 minute chunks, I can do things for about that time and then have to break for a while - sometimes sleep.

Weirdly, but apparently happening a lot - I have lost feeling in two toes on my right foot.

I can’t talk to people for very long without needing a break.

And then the wonder that is insomnia kicked in - needing sleep and getting sleep aren’t always linked so the tiredness is back and Im having to regain the control of my sleep pattern by using sleeping pills - luckily Ive had a delivery of natural ones today as I really don’t like using the over the counter ones.

I had been told that PTSD is affecting some post-covid patients - I guess it remains to be seen if that happens but there’s no denying the trauma of the last 38 days since I got ill and just how scary it is.

COVID isn’t a false alarm. It isn’t fake news. This isn’t something that’s only happening to other people. It’s life threatening, it’s viciously dangerous and there is no predicting how or who you could get it from or what impact it will have on you if you get it. On paper, I should not have been affected like I have been. I was the youngest person in my bay by 20 years at least.

I have never feared for my life before this. I’ve thankfully never been, or put myself in that position, but lying there with oxygen being blasted down your throat because your body can’t fend for itself, when you have a nurse sat next to you checking you're breathing, and witnessing first hand, 2 people die because of the same illness you have is, by some considerable way, the scariest thing I have ever dealt with. Days 3 and 4 I genuinely didn't know if I would make it out of there. Apart from the drugs and the most incredible care from the staff who looked after me, you are literally helpless - you think you are on the worst day you may have, and then it gets even worse. You lie there constantly willing your body to start fighting back and hoping it listens. Mine now appears to be listening but in return, I listen to my body. If I'm tired, I sleep or at least rest. If I need to switch off from everything, I do. If I feel strong enough, I walk but I don’t force it. It’s baby steps each day.

I tend to go on my walk around 8pm ish - it’s quiet and it’s safe and there’s no one around by then. Last night while I was out, I saw a group of 6 kids siting in a bus stop - 4 masked, 2 not. They were there like nothing was happening in the world to bother them, ignoring all the current rules. I don’t have the energy to challenge them and six of them against me probably wouldn’t have gone well. 10 minutes later, there were 4 adults standing having a chat on the pavement - 3 masked, 1 not. All well within a metre of each other and it just made me think that if those adults were the parents of those kids, we may as well just give up. My heart sinks when I see this or when I see the numbers still on the rise or I hear from others that shops are still busy and people are meeting up with others they shouldn’t be. I just don’t understand it.

It’s a shitty, horrible time in the world at the moment - it’s really hard on businesses and individuals and the impact of it all will be felt for years - but if people don’t stop being idiots, if people don’t stop justifying why they did something against the rules instead of just doing the right thing for the sake of others, and if people don’t stop being so selfish then my story will become other peoples stories and soon, in the same way that we all know someone who’s died from cancer, we will soon all know someone that’s died from covid. The big difference is that you can limit your exposure to covid and limit or remove the danger it presents. It's up to you.

In a weird twist, having had covid so badly, other people now pose a greater risk to me than I do to them so I stay tucked away at home 23 hours a day like a prison - except this one has a sofa…and Lego - well, I needed something fun to do!!

Please, if not for your own sake but for the safety of everyone else including me, just stay at home unless it’s absolutely essential that you go out and if it’s essential, please take every precaution you possibly can and get home quickly.

Finally, to all those named and not, listed here and not, at South Coast Ambulance service and at the Conquest Hospital, THANK YOU. You’d hate being called heroes but collectively, you are the reason I’m still here.

The 8 paramedics, Suzie, Robyn, Elle, Orla, Dr Matthew, Dr Babi, Amy, Amii, Rosie, Louise, Sandy, Mary, Ned, Dan, Dimi, Georgie, Theresa, Sophie, the 4 docs (I didn’t see your names but you saw me every day for 3 days), Deanne, Sue, Carol, Dr KamKam, Dr Zeena, Paul, Lil, Casey, Des, Jacky, Jacqui, Lou and Steph.

The Update: 12th Feb 2021

The recovery continues. I am not back at work yet. I've been doing a little bit in the background but I am still very reliant on my wonderful team for pretty much everything. I am going back two mornings a week from next week - I don't know how long I'll do that but I am really hoping to be back full time by mid to end March.

The thing that's preventing an earlier and fuller return is my brain. My memory is really poor. The patchiness I described in the original post has partially improved but there are many things from last year I just don't remember. Short term memory isn't firing quite right - I forget a lot - sometimes even to write down the thing I was trying to remember to write down so I remember it. That thing parents and grandparents do of walking into a room and forgetting why you went there happens to me 8-10 times a day. My attention span and ability to concentrate has improved from the 5-10 minutes I was achieving at the start of January to between 1 and 2 hours depending on the task - but I get very tired very quickly so I have to limit what I concentrate on and how long for. The brain fog which is talked about so much is very real - it's probably a little better than it was but I don't feel as sharp or as switched on as I did pre-covid and the ability to think clearly is impaired. The two toes that were numb have improved slightly but the top part of both of them is still numb.

The cognitive damage is the bit that's most concerning but I'm trying not to think about it. I do lots of brain training activities to help it: Things as basic as children's colouring books and paint by numbers have helped, large piece jigsaws, Sudoku puzzles, the bigger and more complex lego sets and, more recently, getting involved in industry conversations on Clubhouse to try and engage the brain in different ways, have all played a part in the improvements but I am aware there is some way to go and have accepted it may not fully recover.

I drove for the first time in 2 months last week - 15 minutes just around some quiet roads to get back out there - immediately afterwards, I slept for 90 minutes. Again this has improved in the time since then but new tasks, things that require deep concentration and focus are exhausting.

Physically, it's a slightly different story. On Monday this week, I went for my follow-up x-ray on my chest. While the consultant wasn't present and it will be a couple of weeks before I see him, I was able to grab a glance at the image: I knew roughly what to look for. To me, it looks like my lungs have made a remarkable although not yet complete recovery. My untrained eye tells me that I'm probably 90% of the way there but I will wait for the official result.

One thing that is absolutely clear, though: The persistence in getting out walking and building my lung health back up has paid off. It's something I've been able to focus on in my time off work and physically, it's a dramatic difference, highlighted most by my walking 10 miles just 2 days ago... 10.27 to be precise! I have tracked all my recovery walks since walk number 11 - the first 10 were the ones where breathing was hard let alone distance and they total more than 90 miles since January 8th. It seems a bit surreal to look back to the day I left hospital when 1/4 mile took 40 minutes and now, on a good day, I could walk nearly 3 miles in the same time - but in the absence of being able to do anything else and because it was so important, this was priority 1.

My covid journey isn't over yet but the recovery I have made to this point has put me in a position where, yesterday, I was able to go and complete my first platelet donation to NHS Blood Transfusion Service.

Because I was hospitalised with a severe case, it's expected that my antibodies will be quite high. Those antibodies reside in the platelets and they can be used to help people still suffering with covid. They are desperately short of male donors, especially those hospitalised and if I can give something back following the care I have received, this is as good as I can offer.

I will be honest and say when I was first asked I refused. Coming out of hospital, I was so fed up with being prodded and poked, I have had so many bruises from different injections and blood samples and I just didn't want more... but a few weeks changed my mind and I volunteered. The first donation determines the level of anti-bodies and that will then determine the frequency of my donations going forward. If the platelets are usable, I have committed to go as frequently as they need me for as long as they ask. It's really important.

Only time will tell how much lasting impact this has on me - physically, I don't think it will at all. I'm less confident about the mental and cognitive impact - but I shall, as ever, remain positive.

Please continue to take this seriously. Don't push the boundaries, don't push the rules and allow the world to heal before rushing back out.