STORIES

Three weeks before lockdown I knew the pandemic was coming, my mum had been working with international students and he already been scared for her safety. I also knew my daughter and I normally catch every cold and bug going so I felt like we needed to try to get ahead of the game. I bought a thermometer, health supplements, hand sanitiser and lots of biodegradable anti viral wipes. I made and froze lots of soups. I also started asking my five year old daughter whether she was washing her hands at school. She replied that they went straight from play to lunch and she wasn’t allowed to wash her hands in between. I started to worry and complained to the school. They looked into it and admitted that her class were not in fact washing their hands as they were one of the classes to have play before lunch. They assured me they would start washing their hands. Two weeks before lockdown she developed a cough. News was spreading about precautions that should be taken around coronavirus so l kept her off school. She seemed ok, with no fever just a bit snotty with the occasional dry cough and I reassured myself that I was just being cautious and that she wouldn’t have THE virus. The week before lockdown the school rang to say she should be back in school and other kids were in with coughs. I argued that the government advise was to stay at home if you had a cough. I kept her off anyway. Two days before lock down they finally agreed with me that I was right to keep her off for as long as I thought necessary and I wouldn’t be fined. That’s when I relaxed. The relief was quickly followed by extreme exhaustion. I went to bed early with my daughter. I woke up with a fever. My temperature was 38.5, I messaged my friends saying maybe I had just got hot in my quilt but my nurse friend replied saying it would be unlikely to read that high for any other reason than I was running a fever. Then it hit me. Burning in my chest and airways. I remember describing it as feeling like I had breathed in a poisonous chemical. I was completely wiped out, in a dream like state concentrating on staying alive. The following night I went to the toilet and lost consciousness twice, I remember gasping for a breath and shouting out the word ‘mum’ before my partners name and I then remember thinking ‘I almost died just then’, we called 111. The doctor assessed me over the phone and clinically confirmed Covid-19. We were to stay at home and only call again if I had difficulty breathing. The whole family went into isolation. Our house is small and we three of us usually shared a bedroom. The doctor agreed that I probably caught it off my daughter and the message being touted was that children are rarely affected so we didn’t worry too much about her. We thought it was most likely too late and we would all be infected by now anyway. My partner seemed fine thankfully. Although I was terrified he would come down with it too and no-one would be able to look after our daughter. Luckily that never happened. He had two days of feeling run down. The feeling of being poisoned continued for me. I had suffered with kidney stones a month before this but otherwise I was a healthy 37 year old and we were stocked up on superfoods and vitamins so ‘it shouldn’t be too bad for me’ I kept telling myself. Although the way I felt made me fear for my life. I burned essential oil constantly and luckily no cough developed. I can not put into words how strange and ill I felt or still feel. I had terrible headaches, neck pain, eye pain with very slight shortness of breath with the burning sensation and I slept for days. On day 7 it lifted! I got up and got dressed and called my family and expressed elation that I had beat Coronavirus. Day 10 I was hit again hard, the headache and neck pain were unbearable and I called 111. They said I needed to go to a&e immediately, to be checked for viral meningitis. I was examined, no meningitis signs and my lungs sounded clear, I still didn’t have a cough but they reconfirmed it was Covid-19 and said we should stay in isolation until my symptoms went. My symptoms continued. I had a temperature that jumped around, head and neck pain that felt like burning, blood shot eyes, a crawling skin sensation, burning airways and a numb tingling tongue and lips. This went on for a month. I was barely out of bed, except to lie in the sun for the Vit D3. I was scared and confused and the doctors started to sound confused too. I would have the odd day when symptoms would seem to lift a little but then they would return with force. At week 6 I managed to get a swab test as my partner is a key worker. It came back negative, I was thrilled as the advise was that it meant I was no longer contagious. I could cuddle my daughter! I started to feel a little better. My doctor still believed I had had Covid-19 because of my symptoms but said that by week 6 it was probably gone. I tried to regain some normality and spent a lot of time in my garden but the waves of symptoms kept coming, at least for a couple of days a week and then I developed new symptoms, Covid toe appeared in week 8, a rash on my knees, my headache continued. I had heart palpitations and a strange floating sensation, dizziness and nausea. I was also developing brain fog and found it hard to find works. I kept calling my GPs, they gave me blood tests, all came back normal, they started talking about PVF. It didn’t and still doesn’t feel like anything other than the virus symptoms reappearing in waves or ‘hits’ as I was referring to them as but I have never had PVF so maybe that feels as just like the original virus, I don’t know! Then week 9 I noticed my daughter was coughing slightly again and getting out of breath after climbing the stairs, she started looking pale with blood shot eyes on the odd day and then the tummy aches, headaches and limb pain began. We called the doctors. They weren’t concerned. On week 12 my head pain along with sensory sensitivity and whole body pins and needles, took me back to a&e where an urgent neurologists appointment was advised. I’m still waiting to hear from them. Meanwhile my veins have been bulging, my hands develop strange red pressure marks and mu toenails regularly go blue. I had the blisters that were on my feet come up on my hand last week and all the while the original symptoms are still regularly reoccurring. My partner called the doctor about my daughter being off her food, having shortness of breath and still talking about having other symptoms persistently. She finally had blood tests. They came back normal. Then on week 14 I noticed her tongue looked like the images of ‘strawberry tongue’ connected to Kawasaki disease which has been linked to Covid. Our GP consulted a paediatrician and they ordered more in-depth blood tests. We’re still waiting on these results. We’re both still very ill almost 4 months later. We have both tested negative for anti bodies but have been told by consultants to ‘ignore the tests’.  It has been and still is the most awful and terrifying thing I could ever have imagined. The symptoms are endless, bizarre and completely debilitating. We are not only very ill but we are ill with something the medical community know nothing about. We are still being told that they can’t be sure we’re not contagious so therefore, for us that means we still can’t cuddle my mum who lives alone and my daughter has not been able to play with other children for four months. We might not be able to have a vaccine, for Covid, if one comes into existence or even for flu in the winter because we are still sick. The county is deciding to come out of lock down while we sit and wait still feeling so very ill with no treatment. The support groups and the incredibly strong people who have been going through the same thing as us have been keeping me afloat but if I’m honest, only just. They are the only people who truly understand and I’ll be eternally grateful that I had access to speak to them. It’s honestly like living in an apocalyptic horror film and I just can’t even imagine what going though this would be like in a less stable county or a less stable situation. The world needs to understand that this virus is complex and deadly and do much more to prevent more people from catching it and to support those who already have it, as in our experience it doesn’t seem to go away!