Sunday 30 April 2023

Under Quarantine

I finally caught Covid-19, after three years of keeping myself clear. It began with a headache, a dry cough and a runny nose. But within 12 hours I was lying in bed shivering. T piled blankets on top of the duvet. But still I shivered and shook. My temperature was sky high and my head was pounding like mad. ‘I’ve never seen you so ill,’ she said. I lay there drifting in and out of consciousness. It was as if I was in the grip of a tropical disease (which I suppose I was). The test confirmed I had the bug. ‘You look like death warmed up,’ said T, with cheery bluntness. I tried to smile. It was more of a grimace.

Three terrible days ensued. But by the third, my temperature was reducing. I managed to sit up in bed long enough to eat a little food. The next day, the sore throat began. It quickly went to razor blades every time I tried to swallow. The virus also went into my larynx and I lost my voice. It was miserable. However, the bug still had some tricks up its sleeve. My chest became extremely sore and I began to cough up yellow mucus.

By the start of the second week, my temperature had returned to normal. But I still had a bad chest and my sinuses were all bunged up. I was quarantined in the bedroom. T nursed me, always wearing a mask, and brought me food on a tray. I took another test. I was still positive. The bad chest and sinus symptoms continued for the rest of the week. I got very depressed. The GP had classified me as clinically extremely vulnerable. Was I never going to get over this disease?

At the end of the second week my body went into a horrible prolonged spasm. I was burning up, my head was thumping, my chest and throat were aching, I couldn’t stop coughing, my eyes and nose were streaming. I was shivering and extremely thirsty. I drank pint after pint of water, but that didn’t seem to have any effect. I collapsed into bed.

I woke to an exhausted calm, feeling completely burnt out. T had been on to Dr Google. She told me that the spasm was probably caused by my own immune system going into overdrive. Over-stimulated by a strange animal virus, my own defences were attacking me, putting my organs under threat. Apparently this had been the mechanism behind the deaths of many people - even the young, healthy and fit.

I took another test. Surprisingly, it was negative. But I still felt awful. I was coughing up yellow gunge and my sinuses were bunged up. T was relieved. She could take off her mask and relax the quarantine. Allowed to walk around the house, I found I was as weak as water. I had to rest after even the mildest activity, mental or physical. I watched plenty of TV and DVDs. And T continued to nurse and feed me. Over the week, my sinuses cleared but my chest was still a problem.

I was in the shadow of the virus. But I had survived. Thanks be to God, and T. Although at times it’d felt like a close run thing. No-one knows how badly Covid is going to affect them until they get it. I’d received all of the vaccinations. The last one had been six months previously. So I suppose its protection had pretty much run out. I’m now three weeks in and still feeling groggy with a sore chest. I know it’s going to take me some time to properly recover. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that the virus hasn’t done me any lasting damage.




Friday 7 April 2023

Good Friday

This day has many anniversaries. The Christian one concerns an event that took place two millennia ago. In Northern Ireland it’s also known for a Peace Agreement signed in 1998. And on this day twelve years ago, I was diagnosed with stage three cancer. I remember the occasion vividly. At the time I thought my life was at an end. In truth, it was. The life I’d known up to that point in time had ended. I was embarking on a new phase of my life, as a cancer patient. And more recently (touch wood) as a cancer survivor.

Cancer treatment has taken away bits of my body and caused a range of physical frailties that I always have to contend with. It has put me and my nearest and dearest under enormous stress (and still does). But it has also given me resources. Or more accurately, made me develop them. To survive you have to be determined. To struggle against the odds. To struggle against a system that sees you as just another patient. To struggle against yourself. In short, you have to be someone who will ask the awkward questions, who won’t give up when encountering an obstacle, who will keep on keeping on. There is no one word for this survivorship. Resilience, fortitude, endurance are in the right area. It’s more a package of qualities that grow when you are under duress for an extended period of time. Not weeks, nor months, but years.

All of this is undoubtedly crucial for survival. Yet something more is required. You have to be lucky too. All the will in the world cannot alone save you. The stars have to be aligned as well. So today, I remember the friends and family who had the determination, but who didn’t have the luck. My brother Rob. Jean Morgan. Elizabeth Sloss. Charlie Adams. The list goes on and on. So many have met an untimely death at the hands of the Big C. May you rest in peace.