Spectator piece
www.spectator.co.uk/article/getting-coronavirus-does-not-bring-clarity (if was free to view yesterday but has now been covered up and put behind a paywall)
This from 1;48 on Radio 4: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000hmyy
broadcast on 24 April 2020.
‘Uncertainty is the hallmark of the coronavirus, when you’ve got it the sense of medieval unknowing only deepens. Is this definitely it? Will it get worse? Will it come back? My version of the virus began with a nasty headache and a grubby feeling of unease. After which I threw up on the bathroom floor.’That’s disgusting mum’ said my four year old son, handing me a towel with a look of patronising distaste.
‘I’ve never known a bug treat its victims so differently. My friends have reported stabbing sore throats, a loss of taste and smell and a numbness in their fingertips. One slight but sad effect of this is that it makes phoning friends to share coronavirus stories parculiarly unsatisfying. ‘Weren’t the muscle aches awful? Oh you didn’t get it. No, no sore throats for me. Oh well.’
‘That evening as I lay on the sofa a happy thought occurred to me. If this was the virus then my husband who works 16 hour days as a rule, would have to come home. I let myself imagine a fortnight in bed with mild symptoms, more fool me. My husband did rush home to look after me, he’s an extremely kind man whatever people assume to the contrary.
‘But 24 hours later he said ‘I feel weird’ and collapsed. I felt breathless, sometimes achy, but Dom couldn’t get out of bed. Day in day out he lay doggo for ten days he had a high fever, with spasms that made the muscles lump and twitch in his legs. He could breathe but only in a limited shallow way. After a week we reached peak corona uncertainty, day six is a turning point I was told, when you either get better or head for ICU. Was Dom fighting off the bug or was he heading for a ventilator, who knew?
‘I sat on his bed staring at his chest trying to count his breaths per minute. The little oxygen reader we’d bought on Amazon indicated he should be in hospital, but his lips weren’t blue and he could talk in full sentences. Such as ‘please stop staring at my chest sweet heart’. My son in his doctor’s uniform administered Ribena with the grim insistence of a Broadmoor nurse.’ And this might be my only really useful advice for other corona parents or single mothers with pre-schoolers. Get out the doctor's kit, make it your child's job to take your temperature, any game that involves lying down is a good game.
‘Just as Dom was beginning to feel better it was reported that Boris was heading in the other direction into hospital. I’ve been a slack Christian during this era of biblical plague, churches are shut, even Catholic churches. One of the reasons I converted is that Catholic churches are always open the sanctuary uplit – and now they are closed it feels like someone has turned off the spiritual stopcock. But what is there to do for the sick now except pray? I got to my knees for Boris and found to my surprise that my prayers flowed easily. As if carried along in a current of others.’