The Covid-19 Diaries: Part 1

Clouds in a blue sky

March 20th 2020

A lot has happened in a week. A lot has happened in two weeks.
I’m sitting at home, I should be at work. Instead, from Monday, work is coming to me.

I guess I really need to start at the beginning. It’s January and I see on the news about a virus like SARS or Swine Flu that is killing people in China. I hear how it effects them and I quietly start freaking out.

I have a compromised immune system. I take medication every day for this. I’ve wanted to write about this for a while but was always wary of what potential employers would think, even though I don’t miss work for illness. You can never trust people to think like you would.

That changed about three weeks ago. The first cases of coronavirus, or the now named, Covid-19, came to the UK. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before it sifted out into the ether.

About twenty years ago, I got caught in a house fire. I nearly died. I had severe smoke inhalation and completely scorched by lungs and throat. (I will write about that again). Approximately two years after that, I started getting ill. I got red lumps all over my legs, got bad vertigo, really bad pains in my arms and legs. My immune system had enough.

I’ve now been taking medication for nine years to ensure I can get out of bed and function normally.  This puts me in the vulnerable category. There’s no way of knowing how my system would react to getting Covid-19.  I always thought the the biggest, baddest thing I had to fight was myself.

I mentioned this to my acting line manager at work who completely understood my reaction to this thing in the news.

As time went on, I became more and more anxious getting the train to work. The peak came on the 16th, I had been getting the early train to work to avoid the rush hour crowds.  That meant I was there 90 minutes before I needed to be. However, that morning, a guy on the train behind myself and Talulah just wouldn’t stop coughing. Not a big cough, enough to annoy me and get me to move the other end of the train.

In some ways, I think my conversation at work seemed to bring everything forward a couple of days. Tuesday was going to be St Patrick’s Day. An Irish pubic holiday and I don’t work them. From Wednesday, a skeleton crew would be in the office, with the majority, including myself, working remotely.

Being in London, living away from home does mean a bit of anxiousness and worry about the folks there. My sis is with my Mum and Dad at home. There’s not a whole lot I can do from here, trust that they make the right decisions for themselves and not put themselves in danger.

It’s weird, Mam and Dad are married 50 years next month and Mam wanted to have a ‘gathering’. A few weeks ago, I told Mam I did think she should book anything because everything would be shut down. It genuinely could be months before I get to see them all again. Thank Alanis for the internet!

I’m not sure how much I will blog, but I do think it’s important to document this. Here’s to self isolation.

I’m also doing a little daily vlog on YouTube. You can watch it below. Filmed on my Samsung S8, made to be watched on your mobile.