About this
time 4 years ago I was collecting Paul from hospital on his 40th
birthday. He had been in Gloucestershire
Royal hospital for about 5 days and, although still extremely unwell, no longer
needed to be on oxygen or a drip for antibiotics and anti inflammatories and
was well enough to come home. Both he
and I were still very unwell after contracting covid sometime before, we were
both too unwell to look after our three children and sat at home for a week
like an elderly couple recuperating from a surprisingly bad response to covid.
I had
managed to get my act together enough the week he was in hospital to do a
Morrisons order so that we had some nice food and a birthday cake when he came
out. I answered the door to the delivery
drive whilst in the midst of a coughing fit, and through gasps told him I had
covid, at which point he turned tail and practically ran out of our drive
leaving all the delivery boxes with me.
I laboriously brought all the shopping in, each step exhausting.
I also had
the genius idea to buy a balloon arch off Amazon which I planned to erect over
the front door. I soon realized that I
was not going to be able to blow up all those balloons so what should have been
a gorgeous rainbow of green silver and white shiny and spangled balloons ended
up being three balloons which I sellotaped to the front door. When I returned from hospital all three had
blown off the front door and ended up in the sheep field next to our
house. I think they’re still there
somewhere because neither of us had the strength or energy to climb over the
fence to fetch them back. Paul had to
just imagine what it should have been.
As Paul’s
birthday approaches I become more and more anxious. The memories of this awful time come flooding
back, but perhaps even more triggering than that are the people who continue to
deny covid in one capacity or another, either they think it wasn’t real, or not
as bad as it was made out to be, or it was caused by something other than a
virus, and I wanted to put my story out there not just as a form of therapy for
me, but also to debunk silly conspiracy theories about it which till persist
today, in fact are perhaps even more prevalent as the memory of how serious covid
was fades. I am sure some people are so fixated on their theories that I can’ t
change their minds but it will perhaps give some people food for thought, and
that is why I wanted to share my story.
It was
September 2021, I was about six months pregnant and I began to feel
unwell, the children were also showing
symptoms and we did a flow test which proved positive for me. We probably tested the children too I can’t
remember. We did the other type of test
too where we had to go to a drive through clinic. Weirdly these tests came back negative, which
we later found out was due to an error is the testing. It was a strange time because I didn’t
officially have covid but was beginning to feel very unwell, and felt certain
that I did in fact have covid.
Before I go
on I will tell you now that none of us had received any covid vaccines. This is important because some people believe
that it was the covid vaccine that caused the serious cases of covid and covid
deaths and not covid itself, and I want to make it quite clear that it was not
the covid vaccine that caused us to be so ill.
I realise revealing this information also puts me in the position of
having people think we must be a bit stupid to not have taken the vaccine. The reason we hadn’t was in two parts,
firstly we have just been very very busy with moving house, becoming
unexpectedly pregnant and trying to find our feet in a new area. We were also a little bit cautious about the
idea of taking a fairly new vaccine. I
was pregnant and fearful of how the vaccine might affect me or my baby. Paul, although entirely in remission at the
time has Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis, and we had no idea (and
neither did anyone else) how the vaccine would affect this inflammatory
condition. I think I’d say we had a healthy caution rather than any sort of
conspiracy theory about the jabs..
Our view of
Covid generally was of cautions skepticism, there was so much information or
rather mis-information going round it was very difficult to know what to
believe. We felt that as two healthy
adults, both young, with no serious co-morbidities, we did not think Covid
would be serious for us it was unlikely that we would experience Covid as
anything more than a bad cold.
How wrong
we were.
A lot of what happened is a bit of a blur, we
of course isolated ourselves as soon as we found out we had covid and stayed
home, pottering around, Paul hoped for a while that is he wore his mask there
was a chance he wouldn’t catch it, but of course living with 4 infected people
made that impossible. Initially we had high spirits, hoping this would just be
like a bad cold but we Paul and I progressively more and more poorly. The
feeling was like a heavy cold but with an odd detached, fizzy feeling in the
head, we lost our sense of taste and smell of course and eventually began to
cough.
The most
worrying thing was that Paul had a high temperature which didn’t seem to go
down no matter what he did. He took
paracetamol but it didn’t help reduce his temperature. He lay in bed with a fan going, with no
sheets on, a cool cloth on his head but his temperature was going to from
between 38 and 40 degrees. He also had low blood oxygen, which we were able to
check because we had several blood oxygen monitors having had to use them
during Corbyn’s asthma attacks.
Eventually
we realized after phone calls to 111, that Paul ought to see a Dr, he saw a
village GP who told him to go to hospital. I took him in and left him to get
sorted, whilst I headed home with the boys.
I was obviously very worried about what would happen if I also got so
ill that I would need to go into hospital.
We had only been living in the Forest of Dean for about six month and
didn’t know people that well, let alone people who had already had Covid who we
wouldn’t infect.
Fortunately
I had one friend whose family I knew had already had covid. One friend.
I message her asking if the scenario should
occur that I should need to go to hospital could I leave them with her, and she
said I could. I knew this would be a huge burden on her and her family because
she had six children of her own all living in a three bedroom house. I am not
even sure what the alternative would have been if I hadn’t been able to drop
the children with her.
Anyway, I was at home with the boys, I had got out
some corn flour and water and food colouring for them to play with as I was so
very ill I couldn’t teach them or do anything.
I could barely make them food, and decided I too needed to see a
Dr. The village Dr advised me to go into
hospital as well, I had to enact my plan to take the boys to my friend, I
hurriedly (which wasn’t at all very fast) packed bags for them with a very small amount of clothes and their
tooth brushes, I was so ill and had so little energy I couldn’t do more than
that, and we headed off.
After
dropping them with my friend, I took myself to hospital.
When I
arrived I had to head to a special ward, not A and E, a mysterious door with a
red arrow on it. I went in, there were
no chairs, no waiting area, I stood not knowing what to do, already exhausted
from walking from the carpark to the place.
I began to slump down on to the floor as I couldn’t stand any longer,
when luckily a couple (who I think were lost)
found me a chair.
I’m not
exaggerating when I tell you it was like something from an apocalypse, people
wondering around, healthcare staff rushing from one place to another, not even
looking at me, I didn’t know who to speak to, no one seemed to know who I
should speak to I just waited and was eventually taken to a room. It was empty except for one of those horrible
hospital chairs, and I waited there, listening to the sounds of other patients
coughing, calling for help, telling nurses they were coughing up blood an other
such horrors.
After some
time a Dr
came in. He came in and saw me, then
left muttering something about goggles.
It seemed he couldn’t find any goggles to wear, they were so low on PPE, and apparently covid was contractable through
the mucus membrane of the eye so he needed goggles to protect himself. He eventually found a pair, but they didn’t
have any elastic, so he had to hold them to his eyes whilst he examined
me. That is how diabolical the situation
was in the hospital. The dr had to hold
goggles up to his eyes, and examine me with one hand. I really hope that that Dr was ok, and didn’t
catch Covid off me.
After more
waiting it was decided I should have a chest xray, I had to sign a form
consenting to this knowing it would put my unborn baby at risk of cancer. But I didn’t know what else to do but to
agree to it, I felt so unwell and I didn’t want to put any further risk on my
pregnancy. Fortunately the xray came
back clear and I was eventually sent home with an inhaler and assigned a nurse
who would contact me, I had to send regular updates on my blood oxygen levels.
I had been
regularly messaging Paul at this point and it seemed that he was about to be
released from hospital too, so I sat in the car and waited for him to be sent
home. After some time I received a call
from Paul saying that they had told him he had sepsis, they were sending the
crash team in and he was being admitted.
As he was
about to be discharged he had asked a nurse to check his temperature again as
he wasn’t feeling right and on finding it was very high, thank God, he was not
allowed home. I think if he hadn’t asked
for his temperature to be taken again, he would have come home with me and very
likely died from multiple organ failure.
That’s what they hospital said they thought was about to happen to him.
So I sat in
the car in a state of shock, I couldn’t go in to hospital to see him, that was
out of the question, so I just had to drive myself home and wait and see if my
husband was going to live.
I spent a
very wakeful night praying that Paul might live and messaging him and my family
back and forth.
I woke up
the next morning not knowing if Paul would still be alive, but praise God, they
had kept him alive, kept him from multiple organ failure. He was ok, but very ill. He was on oxygen and multiple drugs to kill
the infection that had caused the sepsis and to reduce inflammation.
I spent
that week at home alone with only the dog for company. I was in a state of shock barely functioning,
I had no appetite and kept forgetting to eat.
I watched episodes of some reality TV show about weddings, that I had
forgotten. I had frequent extreme bouts
of coughing, during which I would occasionally pee myself. I had to keep messaging the covid nurse with
my oxygen levels, which were barely satisfactory. In fact sometimes I lied about them being
higher than they were because I desperately didn’t want to go back to hospital.
Paul was
having an even worse time in hospital.
To give you a little idea of what it was like, it was a mixed sex ward
(honestly I shudder at the thought of being in a mixed sex ward, as a woman
being so vulnerable with covid) there were individuals on the ward not of sound
mind and the ward was extremely under staffed.
There were times when there was no water available, and no one able to
fetch any, there were times when no food came up to the ward, they had missed
meals, and were brought sandwiches later, it was a complete mess. One time Paul tried to go to the toilet and
was struggling to breath only to find his mobile oxygen tank hadnt been activated
when it was issued to him. Another time he was coughing so badly, he reached
out to a nurse for help, and help helped him by closing the curtain around his
bed leaving him alone and frightened, coughing and fighting for breath. It was
a completely nightmarish scenario, which you probably can’t even imagine if you
weren’t there.
On the day
before Paul was released from hospital, it was agreed that I could go in to
take him some clean clothes and food. I
packed from clean pants and t shirts and some fruit, the food there had been very very bad and Paul
lost a lot of weight whilst he was in hospital.
At this
point I want to dispel another Covid myth. The idea that people only died from
Covid because they went into hospital.
Paul was very ill when he went into hospital and the hospital not only
saved his life but enabled him to recover.
He didn’t go into hospital a bit unwell and get worse because of the
treatment. He got better because of the
treatment.
So I took
all these bits in for him. One of the strange side effects we experienced from
covid was inflammation in our bodies in places where we had previously had
injuries or inflammation. So, for example, Paul had a very aching elbow from
where he had broken it after being hit by a car about 15 years prior. I had an extremely painful hip because of
sciatica pain which hard flared up massively.
So because
of the sciatica pain I had to walk very slowly and very painfully into the
hospital with Paul’s things. I wasn’t able to go into his ward but left his
bags by the door and retreated a few meters,
he then came to the door to fetch them.
I don’t think we were able to hug or anything like that. I then had to
turn and leave and painfully go back home. On the way back I stopped off to see
the boys at my friends house. Her and
her husband had been sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room so that my boys
could sleep together in their double bed.
She was keeping nine boys fed, watered and entertained. An absolute angel in disguise. I stopped by but very very ill when I was
there and nearly fainted from the exhaustion of driving to hospital and back
and having not eaten enough, I remember not being sure if I had even eaten that
day. It was clear that I wasn’t well
enough to take the boys home, but she said she thought the boys might be coming to their end of their
tolerance for being there. I went home
to recover.
The next
day was where our story began where I collected Paul from hospital on his 40th
birthday. I had asked some friends that week if they could send him a birthday
card just to bring a bit more cheer to the day.
I drove us both home and I was thanking and praising God all the
way. As we passed a church I had a
sudden urge to go in and fall on my knees and just pray out thanksgiving that
my husband was alive, but thought Paul might not appreciate it so much!
We got
home, imagined the balloons on the door and collapsed on the sofa.
That
afternoon the boys were dropped back at our house by my friend and we had a
little celebration with the cake I had ordered and some other snacks and
bits.
Paul and I
were still extremely ill thought at this point so, since we were all now
testing negative for covid, my mum and dad came over and took the boys to their
house for another 5 days.
I cannot
express enough how very unwell we were.
We couldn’t look after our children and could barely feed
ourselves. We hobbled around the house,
sat out in the garden trying to get some late September vitamin d, and just
tried to manage. That week was a total blur and I was just grateful that Paul
was ok. We were still anxious that we
might get ill again, but thankfully we continued to slowly recover. A few
friends and people from church very kindly brought round some meals for us, and
some of my friends clubbed together and sent over a massive hamper of snacks
and treats for us which was just amazing.
We decided
at one point that it would be lovely for the boys when they came back, to have
a trampoline! So we ordered one online
(that was the easy part) and we spent an
entire day erecting it. A job that
probably should have taken us no more than about an hour took a whole day. We were so slow, and tired and exhausted.
Eventually
we were well enough to have the boys back, though our sense of taste and smell
didn’t return for a few more days. I
remember the day I could taste again, we had cooked a fry up as a treat and I
could just taste the fried tomato that I was eating, it was very exciting.
Paul went
on to have long covid and struggled with his breathing issues, exhaustion and
brain fog for many months afterwards. I
went on to have a healthy baby, although was diagnosed with asthma, after
returning home from hospital. I’ll never
know if having covid triggered this or not but that is the only long term issue
I seem to have had (aside from trauma).
We all went on to have covid two more times after this, thankfully no where near as bad, much more
like the bad cold we had expected the first time.
We do not
know why we were so ill when many people were fine, we will never know, I can
see no reason for two healthy people to become so diabolically ill I can only
guess that we contracted a particularly nasty strain.
I continue
to experience trauma from this episode of my life. I am triggered around this time of year,
which is why I decided to write all this down and put it out there, to tell
everyone what happened and banish some myths that still persist about
covid.
I still get
triggered when I see people writing nonsense about covid online or in
conversations. I think one of the
maddest theories is that covid was caused by 5G. I am at a point in life where
I think people who had these wild theories are actually just rather silly and possibly
a bit naive, and in spite of being a person who really doesn’t generally like
conflict, I have no qualms about contradicting these people. But on my more
sympathetic days I think people come up with these theories as a way of
protecting themselves from fear. If they
believe they are safe for whatever reason (because they didn’t have the jab or
whatever) then they can banish fear and feel safe.
I have no
interest at all now in conspiracy theories
If you didn’t get very sick from covid there is one reason and one
reason only, and that’s luck (and God’s grace of course, but for ease of
communication we will call is luck, or chance, or whatever). You were very lucky that you didn’t have
underlying health conditions, or were old, and you were very lucky you didn’t
catch a particularly nasty strain like Paul and I did. You are not special in not getting sick,
you’re just lucky.
The only
other issue I have is with the sound effects from the Switch game, Zelda, that
Paul played whilst he was ill at home, and the sound of the whirring of the
fan. When I hear those sounds I have to leave the room, as I get a horrible
feeling of the memory of that time, and I’d rather avoid it if possible.
I can avoid
those sounds which trigger the memories, but I often can’t avoid stupid
conspiracy theories, I know that people want to make themselves feel safe
(though of course they’d never admit this is the real reason they come up with
them) but the problem is with life is that we are never really safe, fear and
danger lurk around every corner, and you can’t eliminate it by avoiding
vaccines, or paracetamol, or by eating fermented food, or avoiding processed
food or taking special herbs or homeopathy or anything, the only way to
immunize ourselves from fear is through Jesus Christ. And if you want to know
more about that please message me and I am happy to talk to you about him.
So there we
have it, our covid story finally down on screen, for my own therapeutic
purposes and for the benefit of those who still think covid was just the flu or
was all made up. (healthy people don’t nearly die from the flu)
Long term
lessons I have learnt from this experience are that when you are going through
dark times, people go out of their way to show their kindness and I will always
be thankful for that. I now also have
renewed skepticism in what people now call alternative therapies (can we go
back to the days when we called it complementary therapy?)
I am so
thankful we have the NHS has we have pharmaceuticals. Of course there is corruption in every
system, no system is perfect because they’re made up of sinful people, but I
think on the whole they are striving for help, not harm. Not everyone is evil,
not every system is evil. I still use
herbs, and homeopathy etc, but accept
the fact that we live in a fallen world and there isn’t always a natural answer
for all our ailments, no matter how much some individuals would like to believe
that. On this side of heaven there will always be suffering, and until the day
comes when all mourning and pain ceases I will take the best that science AND
nature have to offer.
