One morning last week, the day after exchanging some typo-ridden, slightly feverish texts with a covidy mum, I got an email with this blog post attached. This post is her reflections on my near-miss with covid, her experience of covid, and her thoughts on my chronic illness. So enjoy!
As a parent – and certainly for me, as a mum – many of my joys and sadnesses are inextricably linked with those of my children – albeit they are now in their twenties!
So it is perhaps no surprise that, when Kat recently came to visit us in St Helena (the remote, South Atlantic island where I was working), I took immense pleasure in watching her regain more energy and health than I had seen for several years. Perhaps it was the fact it was warm, covid-free – or perhaps it was because she had no daily household worries and responsibilities? Whatever the reason, she went from struggling to swim a length of the 30-metre pool, to smashing out 15 lengths the week she left!
Needless to say, with every success, there follows the anxiety that all might suddenly be lost again – and this was rammed home, in no uncertain terms, when we had unexpectedly to come home, and en route, both contracted Covid.
Kat was here, staying in the house when the first ‘positive result’ came through… and the terror, that such recently gained energy could be taken away again so quickly, was palpable.
Fortunately – so far so good – thanks to her tenacious use of surgical masks and social distancing… but it might not have been so.
Meanwhile, my first – and I hope last – taste of Covid, got me thinking about Kat in another way. It isn’t really rocket science that many of the symptoms of Post-Viral illnesses are like those of the virus itself. For those of you with chronic illnesses such as ME and CFS, much of this will. I am sure, be only too familiar.
Let me explain what I mean.
First off, every movement of my head stabbed so that I just wanted to lie incredibly still and wait for it to stop.
Light of any sort, especially the sunshine, physically hurt me, so that I pulled the covers over me, just to block it out.
Every tiny noise was like an unbearable cacophony to my ears: the lady next door stood and chatted and laughed on the doorstep with a friend until I was virtually sobbing with pain; the sound of cars starting up and driving away was agonising.
In addition to this, every muscle, bone and sinew in my body was hyper-tender, and ached incessantly, especially when I laid on any part of my body for too long – except I couldn’t lift my head, so my options were relatively limited in terms of how much I could change position.
A couple of times my phone rang on the bedside. It was super-important family stuff. The reason we have come home. I lacked the brainpower even to answer the calls correctly – and when I managed to answer one, I couldn’t articulate what I needed to say. When I tried messaging, I couldn’t even see the words on the screen, so abandoned the whole situation and went back to trying to survive in my private hell.
There are three other adults in the house: one recovering from Covid and two keeping away from it. The former eventually struggled up to make me some tea. Of the latter two, one offered to get me some shopping and the other sent a message later saying he hadn’t realised where I was. They all three cooked: not sure which one made me retch, but it smelled rank to my heightened senses!
Luckily for me, four days later, I am already starting to feel a little better, but during that three days, I lived a little of my daughter’s life – of the lives of so many who wrestle with chronic illnesses every day of their lives – and no shit she doesn’t want to go back there!
What it showed me was how every – single – every day – thing feels totally different when you are sick – and ME/CFS/Long-Covid (call it what you like) is ‘just a virus’ that won’t let you go… so it throws up the same symptoms and sensitivities for years after – as well as adding some unexpected new stuff, just for kicks.
Well it’s just a virus that I hope very much to be done with soon. But please, hat’s off to those millions of people who live with symptoms like this, every day.
Where getting up in the morning is a success, I salute you. And where I can do my bit to protect you from Covid – and avoid risking the health you are currently enjoying – please ask: I will willingly wear a mask!
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