It’s my sixth month anniversary of #LongCovid
Here’s my tale. I don’t know where I got it from. They were positive cases in my county from children and teachers who has gone to Italy for skiing holiday. I went to see a patient in the community, 1/

...They have builders in who Ushered me into the house, to where the Patient was, it was only when I got there at the patient’s wife told me that she had all the symptoms of Covid. I left. I don’t know if I got it from there. My sister-in-law also had contact with known cases. 2/

I work with other professionals, and there had been many with coughs colds and the usual winter illnesses. My hubby & I had had sneezes & sore throat but it didn’t amount to much. I’d got a rash on both my thumbs that spread across the back of my hands, I thought it was odd, 3/

...But I thought it was just the extra hand washing. They were like little pimples/vesicles, that turned into one large red hot raised rash. I was just thinking I needed to go to the GP with it when my hubby started coughing on 13th March. 4/

I started coughing on the 15th of March. The first real symptoms were the cough, sore throat, burning feeling in lungs from my sternum to my throat, I still had the rash on my hands but I ended after the first week with the cough. My temperature wasn’t high it was only 37.7c 5/

Initially I had been quite frightened, but the symptoms didn’t seem that severe I was relieved that we appeared to have dodged a bullet. I kept an eye on all of us temperatures and the saturation levels, it didn’t seem that bad. I even thought I was well to go to work again 6/

This the 1st relapse, I had about 4 days of feeling ghastly & then felt okay for couple of days & then it came back with a vengeance again, but then after 2weeks I felt relatively well. I went for a long walk, I got on with life. And then the cough came back. 7/

I went back to work for a week, I was tired in the evenings but I was working from home. I had the hacking cough, but the guideline said that the cough could linger so,I wasn’t concerned. I was getting energy crashes, but I just put that down to getting over the virus. 8/

Then I woke up at the beginning of week 4 with devastating fatigue, a blinding headache, light sensitivity, and inability to get out of bed or even raise my head off the pillow. I had aching joints aching neck. I’ve had post viral arthritis before so I wasn’t that surprised 9/

That lasted about 4 days. But I started feeling better again and the narrative at the time was if you don’t die of this it’s over in two weeks, so I’m still thinking I’ve got over this this is fine. By this time it’s April 19th, I wake up in the night and my heart is thumping 10/

so I trot out the bathroom in the night and put on the oximeter/hr monitor. I can’t even remember what the number was but it couldn’t of been that high as I didn’t take note of it. My Apple Watch noted that my heart rate of been up to 120 the day before but I hadn’t noticed. 11/

I prepare to go back to work, I speak to my boss on the phone, I’m feeling okay, but this is my fifth week of symptoms. Suddenly I realise that my heart rate feels very odd, my watch tells me that my heart rate has gone up to 155 bpm. I stopped talking to my boss & ring 111, 12/

111say they will send an ambulance as they’re not sure if I’m having a heart attack, they suggest I take several aspirin and sit down & wait for them. The ambulance crew come,They seem a little unsure maybe I look too well, they’re not sure they want to do my obs in their van. 13

Because if I’m okay, it will waste having to do a deep clean of the can. However they relent, hook me up to the monitors, and worriedly say my heart rate is going up to over 200 beats a minute, and they’re taking me to A&E, I’m very breathless & my heart hurts 14/

I get to A&E, and they check my bloods, do a chest x-ray, they can’t find anything wrong except my heart rate has stayed up at 160 bpm, I have a temperature of 38.2 C, and my inflammatory markers are high. I see a doctor and they say they have patients with longer symptoms. 15/

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I am told I need to rest, take more fluids, take paracetamol.
I find I can’t sit up or stand without acute breathlessness. Here by starts my many months of mainly lying down. I ring my GP and say my heart rate still hasn’t gone down. She puts him in a low dose of beta-blockers

She seemed surprised that the hospital didn’t put me on any meds. I ring back after a couple of days and see my heart rate is too high and I hope the dose? The GPs want to see me so I’m seen in the hot clinic for suspected C19 cases. The doctor gets me to walk up and down 17/

I found it hard walking from the car park & up and down the corridor leaves me breathless and with acute chest pain. This concerns my GP so much he rings 999 & they take me to A&E again. I see a cardiologist there he tells me that I need at least a week of total bed rest/18

So it’s not the beginning of May, I’m wondering what the hell is going on. Up until now I’ve only been looking on Twitter to follow epidemiologists & virologists about the upcoming storm heading to us from China. Now I’m on Twitter to find others. Hello fellow #LongHaulers /19