MY STORY: the Covid effect

Covid seemed to have many impacts on my health. Not just the virus itself but also the whole lockdown process. I will be talking through what impacts it had on me and why I think that is. How I was pre-lockdown vs how I am now.

Let’s start with how I was pre-lockdown. When the first lockdown hit, my little girl was not much over 1 year old. I would help out much more with dealing with her. I could pick her up, throw her up and down when we were playing, and get up and down off the floor with her with ease. She would often want me to do airplane with her, where I would lie down on my back and essentially bench press her up into the air, while she outstretched her arms like an airplane. Something I’d love to still be able to do with her now.

Thinking about when I used to go to work, I used to work in a big shared building with other companies. I had a disabled spot by the door but used to walk in, through reception, and down to our office. Admittedly not long before leaving the office for lockdown, I had started using a walking stick, but I didn’t really need it. It was more of a comfort blanket for me. Something o felt I needed as a ‘just in case’. I hadn’t really began to have falls at this point. When I was on my lunch break I used to go to the supermarket, where used to walk around with a shopping basket in my hand. I used to carry some things which on reflection, were pretty heavy (well, heavy for me now), like a box of wipes. Sometimes when I felt a bit more tired, I would use a trolly as a walking aid, leaning on it in front of me, but this was fewer and further between.

“If you don’t use it, you lose it!”

I don’t think, having spoken to a lot of people about it, that many people had a particularly healthy lockdown. I think many of us seeked comfort in food and didn’t see the natural light of day for days on end with the fear of going anywhere. This led to many days, sat in the same room all day working and then sat in that same room all night once you’d finished. For most people, although not good for mental nor physical health, it didn’t really matter too much. Sure, it wasn’t great at the time, but it could be reversed. For me, I feel like this really exacerbated the rate of decline for me. Not doing even the very short walks by most people's standards, into the office, and around a supermarket on a lunch break, meant that as I said in a previous arrival, ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it’. This is something of a mantra that my consultant and as far as I can see on the web, other consultants seem to say which means that if you don’t exercise a certain muscle, you’ll lose that muscle mass and be unable to rebuild it.

We were very cautious as a family, so much so, family members such as my late grandfather called us out on it. I remember him saying “you can’t let it stop you living your life”. We debated it back and forth, he was a very loving and caring man, but he was opinionated. Often commenting that he had better jeans than I would wear when he worked down the pit (he was a coal miner) because I had rips in my jeans, purposefully of course. Whilst debating it however, I explained that the reason we were so cautious was that I was very aware that if I did catch Covid, which was laying very healthy people out on their backs for months, could be the very thing that would immediately land me in a wheelchair. Sadly, about 12 months after the first lockdown, he caught Covid and it was a steady decline until he met his final day. We all miss him dearly.

Due to our cautiousness and I’m sure, sheer luck, we had managed to avoid Covid all of 2020, and the end of 2021 we thought we’d escaped it that year too. Then on Christmas Eve, just before leaving the house to deliver Christmas presents, we decided to do a Covid test. Only really precautionary, I was fine and sharn had started with a bit of a blocked nose, sneezes and coughing. Since we were visiting some grandparents, we thought it would be best practice to do one. To our surprise, dressed and ready to leave the house, we checked the Covid test and there was a very very faint line. We couldn’t quite believe it. My test came back fine but we ordered 2 PCR tests to make sure and when the results came back between Christmas and new year, they showed we both had contracted the virus. To my great surprise, if it wasn’t for the PCR test and the lateral flows which now showed positive, I wouldn’t have known I had it at all. I maybe felt a little bit more tired than usual, but who doesn’t over the Christmas period?

Fast forward 9 more months, to September 2022, and everything is pretty much back to normal. Most people are back in the offices, even if not full-time, the little one is at nursery. Picking up all sorts of colds as most children do when they start at school, building up their immune systems. I had been to physical therapy a few times at this point too. They had actually told me, based on the scores they gave me for my strength, they were very surprised at what I was able to do, and how little time I spent in a wheelchair. Sadly, that soon changed. I caught, what I had presumed, was just an ordinary cold, I felt rotten with it, I spent a couple of days where I did nothing, I didn’t get out of bed the one day, and I had no energy at all. So I did a Covid test. For a second time, it had come back positive and this time, I most certainly knew about it. I think most people feel a bit weaker when they are ill, especially with Covid. I think the difference for me, to this day, 4 months on, I still have not regained my strength. The consensus from the physios seems to be that I won’t regain that strength back now and this is my new normal now.

So there it is, we’re up to today, and if we draw a comparison between where I was before covid to where I am now, there’s a stark difference. Admittedly, even without Covid I would have deteriorated in that time, I do however stand by the fact that I think it accelerated the rate of progression and I would have been in a better position now than I would have been in had it not happened. Nevertheless, that’s life, the crazy rollercoaster that we are on. It’s had its down points, but Covid also had its ups. I got to spend more quality time with my family, during the really early years, when all children are like sponges, soaking up so much knowledge and advancing so quickly. So I’m really grateful that I got to be there for that. I’m also appreciative that it seemed to kick the working world into the 21st century and now most people spend at least some time from home working. Cutting down on wasted hours and increased emissions from commuting to the office. I also think, as for many, it really made us appreciate the simple things in life. Although some people will quickly forget the privileges they have now got that they’d lost for a while. It is something that will last within me.

To everyone reading this, stay safe, appreciate what you have got and make the most of it.

Be Kind.
Love,
Jonno.