Covid-19 in the community

I walk everywhere. I’m a 10,000 step a day woman, I can you know [laughs], I really had to and this walk, which would have been easily manageable, 20 minutes down 20 minutes back for me, was almost you know, I just, I collapsed into bed after that and I thought ‘oh, this isn’t good.’ And then just right the way through the Summer, random things kept going on, and I stopped being able to drink alcohol, I couldn’t concentrate. The worst thing for me, although the physical symptoms were annoying, the worst thing for me was that my cognitive abilities just didn’t seem to be coming back, and cognitive work absolutely exhausted me. I think the things that I was experiencing, the things that I was left with after the fevers stopped spiking were breathlessness, tachycardia, and… yeah, the brain fog the brain fog, the cognitive impairment was just, was really, really distressing to me as an academic, as a writer, thinker, supervisor, whatever.

A weird, bizarre illness I’ve ever had. Well, I’ve never really had a proper illness like Covid. It’s such a bizarre thing. On many days, I feel like I’m almost normal like or close to normal. But I still know that I can’t go further than, I can’t, I still just very conscious to not push myself. You can sit talking to your friends and feel almost completely normal and feel switched on. It’s just so bizarre going from being like that to not wanting to talk at all and not being able to move. So, yeah, it’s quite a lot to put your head around.

I’m a Buddhist, it helps me as well because the nun, we call them Maechi talks to me and helps me to cope with my illness and also, when you some religion, a positive enabler we each have non-judgmental. It helps because you don’t fear you’re judged and also not feeling that you are alone. Because when I got sick, Kübler-Ross or psycho Kübler-Ross of grief, stages of grief so there’s no one point that you are stuck in one. You always have different angles where you are at. When I got sick, I was not, I couldn’t acceptance. Acceptance was really difficult for me. I have the feeling of abandonment and grieving also because I love my job so much. I love working in mental health, right, and that makes it difficult for me because I didn’t, couldn’t, because abandonment because not getting the support that I want and also because of the gas lighting, those things in my head doesn’t help. That’s when you have your anger and then you say, “Why me? Why me? Why, I done so many good things, why is that I’m having this? What have I done wrong?” And that goes up in different level cycle and allowing myself to grieve and to accept. That is one thing that is important. They say to me, “I’m going to send you, there’s something wrong with you.” And they send mental health nurse talk to me but, in the end, the mental health nurse said to me, “You know what? I think you know more about this than me. You’re not a looney.” [laughs].“Yes, you’re going through some things but you don’t need medication or you’re not a looney, you don’t need to be, you know, you are right to feel those things.” And that’s why it’s important to have acknowledgement from people that it’s all right to not be all right.

Yeah. Well I mean, yeah, like kind of, but I actually think, you know, I’ve managed to work around it a little bit. Like, you know, I played football once a week or at least I did, previously. And now, I just play in goal [laughs]. You know, and so I’ll maybe have like a couple of minutes of playing out and you know, playing mid-field or whatever. But then after I’m done, you know, my teammates understand when I say, I need to go back in goal now, you know. So, like, you know, I’ve managed to adapt, I guess and still to you know, try to find joy in those things even if I can’t participate as I would like to, if that makes sense. But no, oh my God like people have it so much worse. Like that person that you were just talking about who like can’t get through a sentence. At least I can do that, you know.

I’d forget how to do the basic things and so, when people talk about brain fog and then I tell, you know, it’s like when you’re pregnant. When you’ve had a baby or when you’re a parent you might get it anyway, you’re, you know, even if you work long hours you might be used to forgetting things. It’s not just why you’ve walked into a room or forgetting where you’ve put the keys. It’s actually it’s actually bigger than that because, when you’ve got three, because it scared me. I said to my husband, I’ve got three little ones at home and, you know, he’s going to work probably thinking, “Are they safe with her today? Is she going to be all right?” [laughs]. Yeah, no, he’s right to but then the anxiety starts kicking in because I think, before I do anything stupid get the kids out the kitchen and I literally, got to a point where I was like, I’m not having the kids in the kitchen. Even when I’m not cooking, even when no oven is on, no nothing is on, nothing is boiling, and my anxiety would kick in. I get so anxious, I’d be like, no. And I’d look around thinking, literally, like cooker’s off, hob’s off, oven’s off, kettle’s off, everything is off. Right. And then I’m like, what else could they hurt themselves, what have I not done? I then start looking for things I might have got wrong because it was happening that often.

When I took it I made sure I put it in social media. Just so you know to raise more awareness, so people maybe are more engaged to take it. I don’t know? But a lot of people in my community said, “Why did you take this? Based on what?” I wouldn’t take this,” dah, dah, dah, dah. So, there is a lot of resistance.

I was so tired. Absolute tired. Then I think after my first one week it was just tiredness. Then I think by second week the tiredness started reducing. I was still tired but I was not sleeping constantly. But I don’t know if it’s like…I am generally not a very nervous person you know I have always read the books about this anxiety attacks and all that. I’m, I am not a person like that at all you know. I am generally a calm controlled and I know what’s going on I think. I’m sure other people are like that as well. I think the second week I could feel that I was getting anxiety attacks. But I could not put it down why. So you know you think about logically, you know husband at home, kids are fine, we don’t have any job insecurities, my work was really supportive they said you can come back any time you want, there is no pressure of working at all so they are very supportive. So you think about it logically there is nothing that makes me nervous and I almost recovered from it because my tiredness was going away. I had no fever, no classic symptoms so you think of the head there is no reason to be anxious but I was getting anxiety attacks at night.
 
And generally I am not that kind of a person, I have never had that. So I even, this was my husband asking you know, I can’t figure out or what is happening because that’s not who I am. I don’t know if it made any sense and he said maybe it is just you sitting at home, general stuff and ah I don’t know there are some studies saying that it could be just your, you know Covid is affecting the brain and you know. And I think maybe being a rational or you know you think about logically, I can think logically because for reasons I think of it like a flu and I could not figure out why it was affecting my brain you know. I don’t, I think my thinking capacity reduced a little bit but not to that extra you know I forget stuff, nothing like that. Just the general tiredness but more than general tiredness and anxiety attacks I was worrying. I think at night I will hold my husband’s hand very, very tightly at night and the thing is I could not place why I was doing that because nothing was worrying me. You know things like that, I think one morning he woke up with his arm fully bruised. Seems like I scratched him at night [laughs]!

What did your mum say when you did eventually tell her that you were sick?
 
She was upset. She was hoping, basically, that it would not be true but she has accepted but it has taken some time to digest and because my aunt died from Covid.
 
Yeah. Was that her sister?
 
That’s her sister in law. So, basically, a year now I’m still not functional as much as I want to be and it just take time and she keeps saying, “There must be something else that can be done.” I say, “No, mum, it’s all up to me managing myself and me managing my medication and me being a part, we have limited capacity to do things and we have to accept that.” It’s very sad now because I am quite disabled. And I’m young. I’m not old.
 
I don’t look like a different person. It’s like a hidden illness which, because when you see a person or a person like me, they will say, how could possibly anything be wrong with you? An expectation of the community of perception of how disabled or chronic person will be. They have to look miserable. They have to look not well dressed, you know [laughs].They must have maybe a wheelchair on or drips or something, I don’t know. You know, that’s the kind of look they are expecting but when they look like somebody like me, they can’t put it together… that that’s how I am.