In the Beginning

I’m going to start at the beginning of the journey (journey…I hate it when people say, “it’s a journey.”) To be fair it does feel like a long, knackering stretch down the M1 with multiple stops at Costa…there seems to be one in every hospital I go to! But now I am here, finally with a diagnosis and this is how I got here.

April 2020 and we were in lockdown.  My husband and I had both caught Covid…I’d like to say I had been careful, but I had been an idiot.  Despite the news I had still gone out in a mad panic the week before lockdown, frantically shopping in case we did all get shut down and stuck at home.  I went to Home Bargains for crafting materials, I visited Ikea for storage, I ran into M&S for luxury treats when things hit rock bottom…those tubs of mini rolls! I went back to Home Bargains for Tiddly Winks. Bloody Tiddly Winks…why?  But this is how my mind works…it was telling me that I liked Tiddly Winks, wouldn’t it be fun to play Tiddly Winks in lockdown? As I queued up, I felt a wave of exhaustion and nausea and my head pounded. The man in front kept coughing and at one point coughed in my face. “Well, that’s it” I thought, “you might as well hook me to the ventilator now.”  I went home in a mood and 24 hours later I had Covid.

Both my husband and I obviously survived, and my daughter Lily bounced back after 24 hours.  This is me on day 3…exhausted, wearing my daughter’s sunglasses and riding the pretend bus to Africa, with a Pig called Belly and an Elephant called Ethel.  My daughter was driving! My husband slept soundly upstairs whilst I tried to stay upright on the bus.  I felt shocking and ached and figured if we were going to get through this, we were going to have to download Disney Plus.