Hazeem

Brief Outline:

Hazeem is married with a young son. He had Covid in 2021. He is currently unemployed and looking at what else he can do for work since failing a medical to be a taxi driver. Ethnic background: Pakistani.
 
Hazeem had Covid in August 2021 and spent three days in hospital. An ECG detected an abnormal heart rhythm, and he was diagnosed with Brugada syndrome (the condition affects the way electrical signals pass through the heart and it can cause the heart to beat dangerously fast). He lost his sense of taste and smell; his taste has returned but his sense of smell is limited. Hazeem’s body strength has reduced, and he gets more tired and out of breath much faster, which limits how much he can do in one day. His plans for work have changed since having Covid but he is hoping he will be able to find some other work. He draws strength from his Muslim faith and hopes for a better future. Hazeem was interviewed in May 2022.

 

More about me...

Hazeem had chills, temperature, and fatigue when he tested positive for Covid in August 2021. Through the night the chills became worse, and he was vomiting frequently. He has never felt as bad as he did that night and he called for an ambulance. The paramedics did an ECG which showed an irregular heart rhythm and Brugada syndrome and they took him to hospital. Hazeem felt scared. The doctors were unsure if the Brugada syndrome was from childhood or as a result of Covid.
 
He stayed in hospital for 3 days until his chills passed. He was able to speak to his family on video calls, but the time spent in hospital was scary for Hazeem because he did not know what was happening to him.
 
Hazeem lost his sense of taste and smell with Covid. His sense of taste returned within a couple of weeks, but his sense of smell is still limited. He still can’t smell the way he used to; he can no longer smell the fresh air or perfumes, but he can smell really strong smells like if something is burning or on fire. Hazeem’s doctor told him his smell will return and as it’s not completely gone, he’s not too worried about it. His heart condition is more of a worry for himself and his wife. 
 
Hazeem’s body strength has also decreased since having Covid. Due to Brugada syndrome, Hazeem can no longer use the gym or do heavy lifting. He gets tired and out of breath a little quicker than before. Before Covid, Hazeem could do his gardening and lawn mowing in one day but now he needs to split it over two days because he gets out of breath. He hasn’t spoken to his doctor about it.
 
Hazeem is having follow up care for his Brugada syndrome diagnosis and he may need to have a pacemaker fitted. Having Brugada syndrome also affects the type of work Hazeem can do. He recently failed a medical to be a taxi driver and is now looking at what other work he might be able to do with his medical condition.
 
Hazeem hasn’t read too much about Long Covid because he doesn’t find it easy to translate some of the English words, but if someone talked to him about it he would like to learn. 
 
Having been in hospital with Covid, he is scared of catching Covid again and needing to return to hospital, so he avoids crowded places. Hazeem felt a bit uncertain about the vaccine at first but since having Covid he says Covid is worse, so he has had his vaccines.
 
He draws strength from his Muslim faith, and he tries to stay positive that the future will be better.

 

Hazeem used to have a very good sense of smell. He felt that his sense of smell had only come back to around 40% and he missed lots of smells in his daily routine.

So, can you not smell...are you smelling other smells or you just can’t smell anything?
 
No, my nose was very good before: I used to smell small, small, tiny things, like a small... even a tiny smell I could smell. If it’s raining, I know I can smell it’s raining, my nose was that sharp, but now if I put perfume on, like with maybe one or... one or one... one minute and 30 seconds, I could smell after that I won’t... won’t be able to smell. Ouu, but I know anyway what’s the difference it did to me, I could smell nearly 40% where I used to smell 100% now, it’s decreased to 40%. I can’t smell a lot the way I used to, no.
 
Oh that’s... I mean I’m glad you've got your taste back, but smell is so important too...You know things like even eating, part of the eating experience—
 
Exactly, yeah.
 
—it’s so important.
 
So yeah, the main thing like... but you know in life, the daily routine, going now to the gardens, smelling some perfume or smelling a rose, you know I’m missing quite many things.
 
Do you find it affects your daily experience?
 
Yeah, it is kind of affected daily experience because obviously when we meet people around here, big difference, one of the big difference, I have some... some Somali or Arab friends, I have English friends and then I have you know different type of coloured skin people, especially when we meet Arabs, they have a special kind of perfumes on all the time, when we meet them I’ll hardly... I can smell and I used to always ask them, “OK, what are you wearing?” and the smell you are wearing and all that, but now it is gone less, I could feel that, like, OK, you know and yeah, I mean OK, when I used to move the bin obviously that’s also a daily routine work like, when I used to move the bin I’d pop in outside or you know open my bin to pull out the paper, like the bin bag, I used to smell OK, and you know stinking a bit, but now it’s gone less, does that make sense?
 
So yeah, these are little, little things which has changed, Covid.