Covid-19 in the community

I had a pain in all of, all of my body and I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink. Lots of vomiting, sometimes two days, two days, I had blood in my vomiting, so I ring to 111. The person said to me, “Oh you should, you must ring to 999 to bring you to hospital.” I called 999 and an ambulance came to our garden and they’re monitoring everything, and they said, “Oh no worries, this this blood is not from your lung. You must stay at home and if you go to hospital maybe will be worse for you.” So, I didn’t go to hospital and I just stay at home.

Yes, because at one point I had a really, really, really bad fever and just wasn’t able to eat. Wanted to throw up. But also didn't have anything to throw up. And was just having a really bad time. Yeah and just you know, feeling hot and cold and shivery and, you know, and sweating, all of that. I think it was like a particularly bad point where we said, let’s just call 111 yeah, 111 and see what they say.

I couldn't talk. I was coughing continuously, pain in my chest, pain in my stomach, pain in back, back of my shoulder and middle part and everywhere. And I couldn't talk. And like lots of pressure on my head. Tons of pressure on my head. I started putting like a towel around really tight. I used to stay like that all the time, even in hospital. Yeah and then my husband goes, “You got something wrong and I need to call ambulance.”

I started to have to isolate myself because I live with my daughter in a coach house. This means it’s only got one floor so I sleep in, I slept on the living room and my daughter was living in her bedroom. So in one morning, I think, the next day morning, I was really, really struggle to take any, I was really bad, very struggle to breathing as well. And then I get a sign for my daughter and she was very clever. She straight away she call one, 111 I think or she call the ambulance. So, which is I was really unconscious. I don’t know, what’s, fully picture of this because I’m fully, I’m really unconscious and I can still hear the sound and I hear somebody ask me to open my eye but then I was so struggle but, according to my daughter, say they was pull me up and just try to get me back so breathing again. And because again, on that day, I was not that worse to be sent to the hospital. They told my daughter, look after me and if I really, really struggle, call 999 again.

I was really doubting myself that I’m going to make it just by staying home. So, when this little pulse oximeter has arrived, we popped it on my finger and I was shocked to see that my oxygen level were around eighty percent, which was way below even for, way below normal even for someone who has a respiratory condition such as COPD or asthma. Then, when I started walking up the stairs, those oxygen levels went even lower down to approximately sixty five, seventy percent, so that was the moment when my wife said, “This is a no brainer. We need to call the ambulance.”

The only time I really had any concerns because during the time when I had Covid, I got to one day where I don’t know if it was anxiety or what, but my chest got really, really tight and it started beating a lot faster than it should and I was getting very concerned. So concerned, I called the emergency services. They came and they did, you know, blood pressure, diabetes, sugar levels. I got tested for absolutely everything’s and said, “You’re fine.” Probably I was, just probably got anxious with not feeling well and stuff like that and so but that was the only one time I feel, ‘oh this is going, not so much I’m not in control with what I’m feeling,’ but, you know, the, I just thought my health wasn’t, I wasn’t in control of my health. It started to grow out of my control in terms of how it, how I felt and how it affected it me so that was the one time.

The worst thing is they said to my wife, “What do you want us to do? Shall we take him in, you know. Take him in. What’s happening at the hospitals, right now just leaving them out there. We don’t know when he will be seen, you know. And if he does go I think as I was saying, he may not come back, you know.” And that was the most frightening thing, you know. When you heard on the news at the time what was going on, you know and then I had a friend who was a doctor and he told me why let, let him stay at home, you know. He had heard of what, actually happening at the NHS. So, my wife made that decision, she goes, “He’s not going nowhere, you know. He’s staying here.”

But things deteriorated, and before that we had contacted the ambulance to tell them, “Look our father is not breathing properly, he is short of breath, he is cold, he has signs of Covid. What can we do, can you come and collect him?” So they were asking him questions, you know, and they said to him, basically, “You are, the symptoms that you have, we can’t take you today, to the hospital, there is no need. You need to, to stay at home until your, symptoms become worse. And if you are worse, the situation is worse, then you can tell us to come and pick you up.” And I was like, does someone have to be that, in that situation to be agrav- the situation to be aggravated, and then we have to come, or you can come early and try to have early intervention to stop it, but they refused, you know.

So on Friday evening, we saw that the situation was not going forward, you know. We had prepared a supper for my father but then again he was not, he was not drinking. That’s when we called the ambulance again, the second time the next, on Friday, and then we expressed our fear. We told them that basically he, the situation is worse, he can’t breathe properly, you know, he is short of breath, he’s hot, he’s coughing. He coughing and then and then there is no things coming out from the cough, it’s a dry cough, and we need some support, some help. And that’s when the ambulance came, you know.