Nadine Dorries: The doctor broke the news — I had the coronavirus. And I gave it to Mum
The health minister was shocked to contract Covid-19. Worse was to follow as she watched her mum, 84, start to cough and become flushed
Nadine Dorries
Sunday March 15 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Share
Save
I will always remember how I felt the moment I was told that I had tested positive for the coronavirus — not least because it was the very last thing I was expecting to hear.
But I will never know how I became infected with Covid-19, only that I am one of the first people in the country to have been identified who has not recently been abroad or been in close contact with someone who had returned from abroad.
I had not really wanted to take the test. I had been at home since Friday, March 6, feeling slightly unwell and self-isolating, just in case. There is no treatment, other than to isolate yourself and rest.
Nadine Dorries with her mother, who also has the virus. Dorries said ‘every muscle’ ached’ after she was taken ill
Nadine Dorries with her mother, who also has the virus. Dorries said ‘every muscle’ ached’ after she was taken ill
A diagnosis would make no difference to how I behaved or dealt with my symptoms. But I had my 84-year-old mother staying with me for a few weeks and, despite the fact that she has survived polio, rheumatic fever, major heart surgery and a world war, she is not in the best of health.
The community nursing team were waiting for me as I drove into a Covid-19 testing centre on a local industrial estate. It resembled the tyre-change bay at my local garage.
I wound down the window and via an intercom was told, very sternly, to wait in my car. I did not have to get out. Two nurses emerged dressed head to toe in protective clothing. By the expression on their faces it was obvious that they were not about to offer me coffee.
Ryan, a nurse, inserted a swab up my right nostril. He smiled as he popped it into the medium and the second nurse handed him another swab. This time he swabbed the back of my throat. He was very determined to obtain a good culture. “Well, let’s hope you get better,” he said through his protective plastic shield, as he snapped the lid on the tube.
Ryan was lovely. Ryan is one of the heroes working out there on the front line and doing so with huge stoicism and good humour.
It was on Tuesday evening when the results came through. I was midway between coughing and sleeping when the phone rang. I left my mum dozing in the wing-backed chair in front of the fire, a blanket over her knees.
She had been coughing all day, not eating, cheeks flushed, eyes hot and bright. The time for her favourite afternoon quiz show, The Chase, came and went and she didn’t even bother to switch it on — something was wrong. I felt disappointed: I had missed an illicit hour watching my good friend Shaun, the quiz master known as the “Dark Destroyer”.
The dulcet tones of Professor Keith Willett from NHS England drifted down the phone: “I’m afraid to tell you you have tested positive for Covid-19.”
His words had the effect of iced water trickling down my spine. “I did not expect you to say I had it,” I managed to stutter in response. I was in shock.
I stopped listening for a second as the thought flew through my mind: my mum is going to get it and it’s my fault. I had brought Covid-19 home from Westminster and had unwittingly passed it on to her.
It felt as though the clocks had stopped. I knew that everything was about to change and I wanted to hold time where it stood.
“Because you haven’t been abroad or had contact with anyone who has . . .” I heard Professor Willett say, and I knew — the goalposts were moving.
This was a game-changer and I was at the heart of Westminster. I was not a returnee from Italy. I felt as though I were standing on the edge of a precipice.
Shock moved swiftly on to incoherent jabbering. I began talking about how my bedsheets were soaking wet every night. Keith reassured me: “Intermittent night sweats are known symptoms.”
Dorries with Johnson. She was with him on the day symptoms appeared
Dorries with Johnson. She was with him on the day symptoms appeared
JOE GIDDENS
He listened, kindly and patiently, as the initial shock subsided. It transpired that I had the full gamut of all the classic symptoms and suddenly I felt a whole lot worse.
I had come into contact with a number of people that week, from colleagues to family members. It was daunting but I knew I had to inform as many people as possible so they could take the right precautions too.
At 62, I’m no spring chicken, but I am fit and healthy. Yet the following days were difficult. It hurt to move my eyes from side to side, my cough was persistent — so much so that I am possibly going to have a residual cough for six weeks while my lungs recover.
I had no sore throat, no mucous, my cough was dry and unproductive. Every muscle ached and the pain felt as though it were lodged deep in my bones.
I sweated through the nights and each day I was disappointed and irritable that I wasn’t feeling better and recovering as quickly as I thought I should be. I was not one of the mild cases but nor were my symptoms severe.
One advantage of being at home is that I have watched the Covid-19 story play out. The public are scared and that is entirely understandable.
The majority of people will be infected with Covid-19, but they will recover without experiencing significant discomfort. Some people may catch it and not even know they have it. The elderly are the most at risk and the most vulnerable.
Regard everything you touch outside the home as being contaminated: every lift button, shopping-trolley handle, wait-button on a zebra crossing — and every cup in a cafe. Wash your hands for 20 seconds. Carry hand-sanitiser and use it over and over. Resist the urge to hug or shake hands with anyone.
My mum coughed repetitively and had a fever for one day. Last night we received the results of her test — she is positive.
Unlike with my situation, we know exactly where she caught it from and the irony is, despite her having had major surgery to replace the valves in her heart damaged by childhood illness, despite her pacemaker and breathlessness, her lifetime of smoking, hard work in her early years and poor diet, she had much milder symptoms than me.
“We old northerners are made of much tougher stuff than you young ones,” she said to me — I’m eligible for a bus pass, remember — as she ran the vacuum cleaner under my feet.
I think there may be some truth in that.