So, amidst all the headlines and the scares and the idiots
variously claiming that the whole thing was a hoax or hysteria, I
got sick.
It started as a general feeling of malaise, a fuzziness of
feeling, a loss of appetite. Last weekend it got worse, and came
on like the worlds worst flu ever, aching in every joint, fever,
sweats. I resolved to call the doctor monday morning.
Monday dawned, and I literally could not get out of bed. I tried,
but I collapsed on the floor as if exhausted, it took me half an
hour to get back into the bed (family having decamped to school
&c). It was while struggling back into bed that the coughing
started. After coughing, I couldn't catch my breath, I lay there
gasping as if drowning, except I didn't really have the strength
to gasp properly.
Yeah.
Cutting a long story short, I have covid-19. I was briefly in
hospital in the middle of the week, and was released after my
symptoms settled into a controlled phase. I was released to
self-isolation at home, one which I now technically share with my
family but am completely isolated from them. I communicate with
them over the phone.
I was released because my bed was needed by someone who's symptoms
were far worse than mine, someone who needed oxygen, either
passively or by intubation. I got a handout when leaving the
hospital which speaks of the Fifth Day. That's the day when, in
some cases, the lung capacity of the infected is reduced to such a
level that the body starts to "crash" in terms of symptoms. The
lung capacity is so low that the heart starts to beat faster and
faster trying desperately to pump oxygen to the organs. The brain
starts to prioritise organs and body functions. As it does so,
things begin, inexorably, to fail, and require urgent medical
attention. This happens to between 4 and 7 percent of all
sufferers of Covid-19. Something short of half of those people
die.
Today was my sixth day since becoming symptomatic. I still feel
like death, this has taken me an age to type, but I am still here.
As Granny Weatherwax says: I Ate'nt Ded.
