Happy New Year 2021!!

HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am, by my very circumstances and nature, just about totally socially distanced. Divorced, own house, not a social animal, likes fishing. And I’d spent 9 months being as careful as it seemed possible to be, food shopping only, click and collect for anything else. Masks, gels, distanced and hand washing. Mostly on-line prepayments for matches, socially distanced draws, very limited/zero post-match social interaction, happy enough to go home and wait for bank transfer of any winnings.

So how pissed off was I in the week running up to Christmas when I started presenting with symptoms of the Common Cold. Sore throat, bit run down, bit sneezy, some phlegm but nothing to get excited about. And, NB, not a single recognised symptom of covid. not even a hint!! It wasn’t even a particularly bad Cold, I’ve certainly had a lot worse. But, worryingly, it didn’t want to go away and I was definitely deteriorating after Christmas, entering a phase where I didn’t actually sleep for about 4 days. My mind was just racing, weird hallucinations were keeping me awake. And I hadn’t actually eaten since Christmas Day.

I got to NYE like this, but I was so desperate now that I ended up phoning NHS direct in the middle of the night. I was promised a response which took a full 3 hours, and by ten it was about 7 am so the response was to contact my GP’s surgery. This time they responded an hour later, but the upshot of the conversation was a prescription for a few sleeping tablets. To be fair to the on-line GP, I was still describing Cold symptoms so I might well have met the ‘so what’ categorisation.

I deliberately ignored the proper sleeping tablets in favour of Nytol, which proved fairly ineffective. But by the afternoon of NYD I was in a proper state, but drove up to my -ex’s anyway to see Fflur. My -ex was genuinely shocked at my state, I was freezing and ended up sat on her settee in a fairly warm house but with a heated blanket, two blankets and two hot water bottles and I was still shivering. So I felt compelled to try NHS Direct again, and after quite a lot of push back eventually got then to agree that I should attend A&E. In hindsight, possibly the most important argument I’ve won in my life.

Fortunately my -ex was available to drop me off, so mid’afternoon I was wheeled into The brand new Grange Hospital at Cwmbran. Immediate assessment was that my blood oxygen levels were way too low, so I was sat there with some supplementary oxygen. Quick walk through my symptoms (Cold innit??) and then a standard lateral flow test for covid. I was shunted off into a holding area and next thing there was a major panic to move me because I’d come up positive!!!!! I genuinely never saw that one coming. Quick blast of Dexamethosate (NB huge respect to whoever sussed that out) and I ended up in a rather nice room in A ward at the Grange.

Next morning , I had the most sobering conversation of my life so far with an obviously distressed consultant. I was ‘quite ill’ (no shit!). My lungs were showing damage from emphysema anyway plus more recent scarring caused the RA and/or the Methotrexate that I had been taking to deal with it. They would deal with it via steroids plus oxygen support from the wall as far as it was possible. If I went into ICU they would not intubate me (‘wouldn’t expect to get you back’) and if I went into cardiac arrest I was down as DNR. HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!! What a sobering conversation!! In the worst case I would be allowed a compassionate visit to allow family to say their goodbyes. I was seriously working through how/who I would involve in selling on my assets to push money back into the estate for Fflur. How would I sort out a Will etc. i.e. that place you never really expect to get to.

Next move was a transfer within the Grange, ward B Zero. Not significant as such but at least it wasn’t ICU (50% chance of escape!) and I was still being sustained by oxygen off the wall. A few days later I was informed that I was moving back to the Royal Gwent, which was OK because it was sold to me as a recovery ward. Sure enough, transfer ambulance turned up at about 2am and by day 6 or 7 I was ensconced in a 6 bed ward alongside some poor individuals who had been there up to 5 weeks. And slowly they weaned me off 15L of oxygen down to 2L which meant that I could be discharged with oxygen generation at home. To be honest I was just happy with the direction of travel because I’m in a full lockdown anyway I was hardly missing any excitement. The oxygen took about 48 hours to get sorted so I eventually got an ambuance ride home early afternoon on Wednesday 13th, i.e. a full 13 days since admission. And I count myself lucky, because although I’m sat here with some oxygen support, I’m out of Hospital and should recover.

So, a few observations. OK, so 1/3rd of people who contract the virus may never realise, my own daughter was almost asymptomatic. But they can pass it on! And of those who are ill, yes in some cases it is no worse than the ‘flu’, which is in itself a nasty virus. But where covid-19 does take hold it is an absolute bastard, not being able to breathe is as close as you will get to drowning out of water. And it has a nasty habit of attacking other organs. It has been quite noticeable over the past few weeks just how many of my FB Friends have actually suffered with this. In most cases it seems that they will recover in the longer term, even if its slow. But a few are in a much worse place. I was never party to any of the conspiracy theories anyway, but to be certain now if I should encounter any covid deniers along the way I will not hold back in any way. This is real. It is totally unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. People are dying when they don’t need to. I caught covid-19 in a slightly crowded Supermarket ffs. Maybe it wasn’t as socially distanced or controlled as it needed to be, but people were masked and there was gel available etc. A Supermarket. Who would ever have thought that the simple everyday task of food shopping could threaten your life. If any of you cannot possibly conceive of not travelling out a few miles to fish, then I do understand, but please be as safe as possible. But staying at home would be safer. There is a way out of this, but it might take self-constraint and some sacrifice which is nothing in comparison to what some families are having to endure.

Stay Home! Protect the NHS! Save Lives!