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Report transcript in: Experiences of Long Covid
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Experiences of Long Covid
Please Report the Errrors?
frightens me to death.
It feels before the terror.
Um,
since I had covid, um, in March, April 2020.
Um, I have constant headaches.
Um,
going upstairs is is just
exhausting.
Um, I have this cough. Um,
it it's all the time.
Um,
I still have no smell, no taste.
And I get hot sweats like I'm going through the menopause again,
which I think really weird, considering I was 40 when I went through the menopause.
I'm nearly 60 now.
Um,
I'm so tired all the time. I don't sleep asleep maybe 2 to 3 hours a night.
Um and that is not continuous sleep.
I wake up because I think back I dream about how I was feeling
when I had covid with the constant coughing and not being able to breathe.
And,
um,
I have a lot of anxiety.
No energy.
My,
um I was
having C BT and occupational therapy
and, um, physiotherapy.
And because of my lack of sleep and my lack of energy because I'm not sleeping,
they didn't feel they didn't feel as though
they could help me because I couldn't participate correctly because
I wasn't getting the sleep I needed to participate in those
things that they would try to do with me and for me. Um,
so that's been now,
um, I have dizziness when I'm lying down and getting up.
Um,
I haven't driven now for
since the digital started. That's about a year.
Um,
I have no strength. It's really weird.
I have to pass somebody a bottle to take the top off,
because I I can't grip it properly anymore.
It's I I thought that was just me until,
um, I started speaking to
people.
Um, last week
I thought it was just me because I haven't been out doing the things I used to do.
I didn't realise that was a part of
the symptoms of long covid.
Um,
OK,
I don't go out.
If I can help it.
I seem to hide away. I seem to have become a recluse more than anything now
because
I can't trust people, or I can't trust not getting a covid again,
because I know we can get it again. I don't know. No matter how many jobs we have,
you can get it again,
and that frightens me, really frightens me to actually go through that again.
It was kind of a completely integrated, multidisciplinary team. They had
all, you know, speech and language therapists who came
and, um, taught to me about,
Well, help me with
speaking and would swallow in And, you know, that kind of thing.
Occupational therapists who came and and worked with, uh,
one of the things I I suffered with was really bad pains in my arms.
Um,
So they were with me with that physiotherapist coming in
two or three times a day to exercise and get me standing and walking.
Um,
so, yes, Um, a psychologist came to to,
you know, to talk through what? What had gone on and
and whatever else. Um, So
So, yes, that was, um that was fantastic. Um,
sometimes
it was kind of, like, just really can't be bothered. Um, but,
um, you know,
I
improved.
Um, Now I look back, I improved fairly quickly, um, under their help and guidance.
And whenever I was walking down to the end of the ward,
um,
you know, within a couple of weeks, um, in actual fact,
um,
the so the end of the second week in January, um,
I was well enough to be able to to come home.
I would like to For someone to be able to say, Yeah, well, that's OK. That's normal.
This is what you would expect. But
I think I don't think they, you know, anybody really knows exactly.
Um, how long this can take to
to recover from?
I don't know.
I suppose it is very difficult. It's something that the new, um, and
things are still developing, and a lot of people are out
developing differently.
I mean, even having a shower would send you back to bed trying to shower,
Couldn't do my hair, uh, couldn't do anything.
I wasn't who I was.
Let me just remind you all
that before covid
I was
working full time
driving 20 miles to work 20 miles back, doing overtime.
I used to work with two screens in front of me
and talk over the phone. So,
you know, like an account manager for telecommunication company,
Um,
and one of the best sellers in the company, too.
I was, um, volunteering. Going to, um
Her Majesty's prison and praying
for with with inmates.
I was singing in a choir.
I was, uh, a traveller. Loved cruising
and running the home.
You know, it was absolutely gorgeous baking cooking,
looking after her family and grandchildren as well.
And now I'm a fraction of who I used to be.
Um, at one stage, we just had a grandchild who was one years old at the time.
When Covid came, he thought my way of communicating was coughing.
Yeah,
he thought when he saw me and I was coughing, it was a way of communicating with him
cos he's never
You can't remember me talking without a cough.
I guess there is some.
There's a lot of mental effects as well to and also
learning because I know one of the things that we're told is
that, um, we might not get back to where we were.
And I think that's been really hard to accept as well,
because you just you just think once you come out of hospital,
you're just gonna get better and better until
you're back to that place where you are.
But now, like because it'll be two years
in
the end of April since I've come out of hospital.
But it's like I wouldn't I wouldn't have thought that
I'd still be where I am now you know,
from
the effects of it, for I guess,
Yeah,
and I think I think as well it's probably It's difficult as well,
I think for the health professionals, because it's probably all new to them as well.
So
I think sometimes, yes,
yeah,
well, in fairness, sometimes they will say that you know that it is new to them and
yeah, that
as well. So I think it's, you know, I
I guess it's I know it sounds probably selfish, but
if other people had already been through it, they might not, You know what I mean?
They might have. But I guess
with being the first,
you probably
unfortunately you probably getting,
I guess.
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