Gulsoom

Age at interview: 31

Brief Outline:

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Pakistani
Background: Gulsoom is 31 years old and is Pakistani. She lives with her extended family and is a service development lead in a community organisation. Gulsoom became concerned about Covid when her extended family became unwell with the virus. She feels that there should be more support for grieving families and clearer information about vaccination.

 

More about me...

Gulsoom remembers the first lockdown in the UK. She says she felt ‘scared’ because she did not know what was happening. However, through her job in the community, she had the opportunity to learn more about Covid. She remembers going to a park to share the information she had learnt. She gave people hand sanitisers and face-masks and explained the importance of staying at home. As time went on, she did not think much about Covid. As she puts it, “I didn’t know anyone close to me that had Covid. I didn’t hear anyone in the nearby neighbourhood that had passed away with Covid.”
 
Eventually, Gulsoom started hearing about people in her personal network who had Covid. She thought, “there must be some truth behind this because I know so many people now that are actually getting Covid.” When she heard about the large number of people dying from Covid, Gulsoom felt alarm bells ringing in her head. She also says that the pandemic became more real when her grandmother’s brother passed away in April 2020 from Covid.
 
When lockdown eased in June 2020, Gulsoom felt like life had become more normal. However, her father then started getting ill with cold and flu symptoms, and within the space of two weeks, started deteriorating. Gulsoom struggled to get medical support at first, but eventually got advice that her father must be rushed to the hospital. She said this was a sad moment because she could not go into the hospital with him due to government restrictions. Her father was also saying things like, “I want my children to come with me, I’m scared,” which made her worry even more. Gulsoom felt like this could be the last time she saw her father, because of rumours that people who went into the hospital with Covid were not likely to survive.
 
Gulsoom was allowed to see her father when he was put into an induced coma. She felt that her father would pass away, but her family had much more hope that he would survive because he was relatively young and healthy. When the nurses explained that her father was experiencing organ failure, her family accepted that he was going to pass away. However, they were also confused because Gulsoom’s father had detoriated so quickly.
 
Sixteen of Gulsoom’s family members have had Covid, and she says their symptoms were all quite different. Her main symptoms was fatigue. As she puts it, “I was doing something, and after ten minutes, my energy levels would just go. I would be so fatigued.” She says she also lost her self-esteem and confidence, as her symptoms lasted for about three or four months.
 
She says that her family need a lot of support going forward to cope with the trauma they experienced related to Covid. She would like there to be more support available to grieving families, and for hospitals to reconfigure rules around visitors for patients at the end of life. She also thinks that more effort needs to be made to explain why vaccination is important to some members of the community.

 

Gulsoom found out through social media that a relative had died from Covid in April 2020.

But then I myself, so then I think a lot of my friends and family started getting ill with Covid but it was only when my grandma’s brother passed away with Covid in April two thousand and twenty, last year and they said the cause was Covid and then the whole family had caught Covid and he was the first person in the family to pass away. And I think that’s when it really hit us that, oh my god, this is really serious.

Gulsoom says that community messaging via social media was taken more seriously than government or mainstream news.

But I think because a lot of people around our community circle weren’t actually getting Covid symptoms and we didn’t hear of anyone losing anyone with Covid, I think people were just like on the fence thinking, “How much of this is actually true?” Like, “What is the government saying to us?” Like, you know, “Is there really something called Coronavirus?” And, you know, “What’s actually happening?” But I think as well we started seeing on social media, the news, messages being circulated on Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram, that’s when it became apparent to people and people started showcasing them losing loved ones, then actually getting Covid, I think that’s when people thought, “Oh my god, I know I know that person. That person lives up the road.” You know, “That person is that person’s relative.” So I think everybody started to realise that people are actually getting Covid. People are actually passing away and I think that’s when it became apparent that this is serious, you know. We need to do something about this.

Gulsoom pointed out that negative stories tend to be picked up and circulated much faster than neutral or positive accounts.

I think, to be honest, with the fake news a lot of people have been spreading fake news about them, so voice messages and we just have these circulating about people going to hospital and nurses trying to kill the patients and that’s been circulated. So one negative case study gets spread on social media within minutes. So something so negative gets circulated so fast but, when you’re sharing a positive case study, that’s not getting circulated as fast as a negative case study. So videos were being circulated within the community  don’t take your loved ones to hospital, this, so maybe because of the nurse, well, nurses are giving so, I don’t even know where they’re getting this sort of intel from but I, but it’s getting circulated to the community. Also nurses are all in it with the government. They’ve got a contract with the government.

Gulsoom said she felt alone after her father died from Covid.

You were literally dying inside and no one could hold your hand as, they’re telling you, “I’m sorry.” You know, as we rushed in the hospital and they sat me in that room, “I’m so sorry, you know. Your dad has gone.” You know, I couldn’t go to anyone for a hug, you know. I was broken but who was there to comfort me? No one. My mother wasn’t there to comfort me. My siblings weren’t there to comfort me. My friends weren’t there to comfort me. I was alone grieving, in pain and I had to just grieve by myself.

Different members of Gulsoom’s family experienced different Covid symptoms.

I personally think it depends on how your body reacts to Covid because everyone has a different immune system so, with my youngest sister, she’s got certain health problems, so her Covid might only have lasted a short period of time but her symptoms were so severe that we had to rush her to hospital. So and then certain siblings, we thought would have a weakened immune system, didn’t show no symptoms or no signs of Covid, apart from a slight temperature and maybe a bit of a headache. So every sibling, every sibling or family member that got Covid, we were shocked with how their body reacted to Covid. I actually thought I wasn’t going to be as bad as I was. I think my family and myself are very shocked because I’m very proactive. I used to go to the gym. I’m always walking and I’m always active so, when Covid hit me, I was one of the worst with the symptoms.

Gulsoom saw from her community work that less White people were getting sick with Covid.

When I sort of heard that on the news, and we started doing a lot of work in the community. We realised that majority of the people that were getting taken into hospital were from a BAME ethnic background. So black, African, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, whatever but from the BAME community and not many white people were getting Covid and, even if they were getting Covid, they weren’t… getting taken into intensive care and weren’t really dying with Covid.

Gulsoom noticed that ‘everybody was reacting differently to Covid’.

People didn’t actually know what was happening to their body because everybody was reacting differently to Covid. So some people were just getting headaches. Some people were getting cough and cold symptoms. Some people were getting the fever. Some people were literally unable to get out of bed for days upon end.

Gulsoom thought her father had a normal cold or flu until he rapidly deteriorated and struggled to breathe.

And then we went into lockdown two and then my father started getting ill and we just thought it was normally, normal cold flu symptoms but he got really really ill, so for two weeks he deteriorated, and he really struggled with his breathing, and he was gasping for air. So I went to go see him and we rang the doctor and the doctor goes, “He’s got Covid pneumonia. You need to rush him to hospital.”

Gulsoom found that telling her story about Covid helped other people to open up about their Covid experiences.

So one thing I’ve realised in the community, is people have a fear and they’re really worried about telling people they’ve had Covid so people were hiding the fact that they had Covid because they didn’t want to be the ones that the ones that were passing it onto other people. So the thing with me is I’m a very open person, so I openly said, “I have got Covid. I will not be into work. I have to make sure I am taking full precautions and my whole family has got Covid as a result as well.” Now a lot of people had Covid but they did not disclose that to the community and nor did they tell people. It’s only once I had had discussions with them that they had said, “We had Covid last month and we couldn’t do anything.” And so sharing the story made people open up and talk about their experiences with Covid.

Gulsoom caught Covid in August 2020. She spent days in bed and was so tired that she struggled to brush her teeth or wash her face.

Because, when Covid hit me, it literally fatigued me to the point where I was just in bed for days on end, like literally, I couldn’t do anything. Going down the stairs was a challenge for me, you know. I couldn’t really brush my teeth or wash my face. It was like exhausting for me.

Everyone recovered from different symptoms at different times in Gulsoom’s family.

Right, so for some of my siblings, they got cough symptoms, so their cough didn’t go or their smell and taste so, my smell and taste luckily came back after two weeks but their smell and taste didn’t come back for a good three months. But also, their cough symptoms didn’t go.

So they were coughing, like I didn’t really get the cough and I did lose my smell and taste  but mine came back after two weeks but they lost their smell and taste for a very long time. They probably weren’t as much fatigued, but they probably had lost their smell and taste and they had cough symptoms but some of them got really mild symptoms so, after three to five days, they were absolutely fine.

Everyone in Gulsoom’s family was trying to nurse each other despite being very ill.

We were trying to help each other but we were all so ill ourselves. And I think because we all got Covid, no one was able to really like, I know we had close friends and maybe people dropping things off at the door but because there was so much of us ill, we tried to nurse each other.

Gulsoom felt very reassured by the advice she received about her symptoms when she rang a local Covid helpline.

And now you’ve got these amazing Covid helplines, where you can ring up these helplines and you can say, “Look.” You know, rather than ringing 111 because they’re they are so busy it might take you an hour to get through to a 111 line. You ring the local community centre, where they’ve got a Covid helpline, and you can say, “Look, I’ve got cold and flu symptoms. I’ve got a bit of a temperature and a cough, you know. What shall I do? You know, I’ve heard, you know, people are dying, you know, what shall I do? I’m struggling with my breathing.” And they will try to advise you and support you. They will reassure you.