Sara

Age at interview: 39

Brief Outline:

Sara is a 39-year-old researcher living with her husband, 8-year-old daughter, and 6-year-old son. 
 
Sara developed Covid symptoms in March 2020 around the same time as her husband and daughter. While her husband bounced back, Sara and her daughter didn’t recover for a long time. Sara didn’t feel listened to by health professionals and is worried about trying for another baby. Sara was interviewed in November 2021.

 

More about me...

Sara developed Covid symptoms around the same time as her husband and then 6-year-old daughter, although her 4-year-old son didn’t seem to get the virus. Sara “realised something was wrong” two weeks after getting ill when she still felt really unwell. She phoned 111 but felt that it was a “horrible experience” as she had to wait for hours. Sara also phoned her GP and got a call back from the “nice doctor”, who happened to be self-isolating at the time and called her every few days to make sure she was alright. 
 
He also sent her to A&E three times, but Sara was sent home each time and called “hysterical”. Doctors at A&E thought Sara’s concerns were because she was too “highly educated” and monitoring her health too much. She was advised to rest and “stop harassing them”. Sara has a PhD so she changed her title in her medical records to “Dr”. She felt that interactions with healthcare staff were better after that but felt that it was ridiculous that she had to change her title to be treated with respect. When her concerns were being respected, doctors thought that Sara might have a virus like glandular fever (also known as mono) or CMV because they thought Covid only affected people for a short time.
 
After a couple of months, Sara started to feel “more alive” but found that home schooling her children and going back to work took her energy away again. Sara worked remotely but even joining meetings online left her feeling exhausted. After the government announced that “critical activities” could continue and Sara’s work required her to go back to the office, she found the ten-minute walk to work “a huge effort”. Being this tired made Sara feel that she couldn’t “be [a] patient parent… [or] good home schooler”, not helped by being in pain all the time and she felt “a lot of guilt” about how Long Covid affected her family.
 
Childcare was difficult during the pandemic, Sara and her husband had to pay hundreds of pounds for a childminder when they were both expected to go into work for three days. Sara had hoped that the school would accept their children, but they were turned down because Sara and her husband weren’t classed as key workers. Sara found this really difficulty and was “falling to pieces”.
 
Sara’s parents lived in another country so she found it hard not having her parents there to help with childcare. Sara felt that women were disadvantaged during the pandemic because there was an expectation that they would do the domestic work, childcare, and still work in their jobs too. Sara’s found it especially hard knowing that she can’t take the medicine which helps her Long Covid if she becomes pregnant; she struggled with wanting to expand her family and not knowing if she could survive a pregnancy with Long Covid.
 
Sara had been referred to a Long Covid Clinic but when it finally opened, she was disappointed with the service. Sara felt that there should be specialists from more than one area observing patients so they could get the care they need. However, she is starting to recover more and felt like she was “80%” back to normal after getting the right pain management medication from the GP (after a few different attempts) and an inhaler from a specialist in the Long Covid clinic (after several trial and error attempts) – which she called “a miracle”. Sara’s glad that there is more awareness of Long Covid both in public and in medicine. However, she’s “furious” with the anti-vax movement and government advice not to self-isolate if you’re under 18-years old.

 

Sara’s GP advised her to go to A&E for a heart scan but, when she was there, Sara felt dismissed by the consultant. He told her to relax and not monitor herself so much.

I went to the A&E because the GP told me, “I want you to go to the A&E. I am feeling concerned about the things you’re telling me, how you feel in your chest and things. We need to have a proper echocardiogram.” This why I went to the A&E. It wasn’t voluntarily. They haven’t done me an echocardiogram.
 
A special-- like the big important doctor came, not sure what’s his position to explain to me that I’m hysterical, and I need to relax. And they said, “These educated people that monitor themselves too much, are not helping themselves.” Why even I’m trying to measure my temperature, why even I’m trying to measure my oxygen. I should stop doing this hysterical things that bring me, make me feel not good. I need some good rest and stop coming and harassing them.

 

Sara feared her UK work visa would be cancelled, and her family would have to leave the country, if she did not make progress with work projects.

And I guess you had to, even though your employer was understanding, there was this sense that you needed to keep working?
 
Yeah, it’s not like could, understanding yes but it was understanding as long as I show process, progress. It’s not like I could really stop working.
 
And what would’ve been the end, the worst-case scenario had you had to stop working? What would’ve, where would you have—
 
It would terminate my visa.
 
And your whole family?
 
Yes. I’m the main dependent. I am the main migrant. So, yeah. It would’ve literally terminated my—if I would get fired or my contract wouldn’t be continued because it’s a fixed-term. And, yeah, I can’t even go to half, 50% work because it’s not applicable to visa conditions, could probably reduce to 75 and still be in the limits. But I actually prefer to have the full hours that I am here and do less which I was allowed to do. And I don’t know, maybe you know sometimes in my head maybe I could have done less. Maybe I could have been more forgiving, less, you know. As a person, it’s also hard to not be who you were before and to give up. Anyway. 
 
How long have you been in the UK?
 
Now, five years and—we got our allowance last month – very exciting. But again, when it happened three and a half years. 
 
So, you’ve been here and you’ve you know, made a life here and—
 
Yeah, I did not want to terminate because of this. It also puts you in a tricky situation because if you are on a visa and not entitled to any public funds, so you’re not entitled to any job seeking allowance to me as well in the case of being unable to work, et cetera and to make—okay, I’m going back to [Country]. Let’s assume we give up. So, I can’t work. I can’t do work in this condition. It’s one thing to try to continue where you already are but finding new work in this condition? You can’t.