I recovered from Covid after 3 weeks. Here’s what helped.

[Turin]

I hope I can help in some ways as I recovered from the awful virus. I had it for three weeks and believe I caught it from colleagues/students at school who presented mild symptoms. The virus attacked me very slowly (headaches and fatigue very normal with teachers) and the aggressively- coughing and flu like symptoms. I was in bed for weeks after.

It was so bad at one point I gave my DS (single parent) the “if Mummy dies” talk. Breaks my heart that he had to hear those words.

So I just want to share what helped me in case anything can alleviate your pain:

1. Plenty of fluids despite making me vomit. The emptying of my stomachs helped clear mucus in my lungs/throat and helped me breathe. The only food I could graze on was flat breads or fruit.

1. Antibiotics- the GP said this was to treat a secondary bacterial infection on my lungs in the second week which helped me breath. It did.

1. Paracetamol x2 every four hours. Some days I was so weak it would take me two hours at 4am to take these. During the day DS was trying to nurse me the best he could.

1. Lucozade. I could not eat and my sugar levels were desperately low. Some days/hours I had no idea where DS was (big garden) as I was so lethargic and fatigued. The lucozade gave me the sugar rush I needed to gradually get up and try and be a parent to him. He is 9.

1. Steaming. My friend recommended doing this with whole cloves as this is used for colds in her culture. Again helped massively when I had the energy to boil the water and place in a bowl.

1. Turn of sky news if you have it! The sight of the giant red virus cell as their background was nauseating! Turn off the news in general. It doesn’t help morale hearing about death rates.

1. Have a heated pad or hot water bottle on stand by if you do get the chills. I had a microwaveable heat pad used for pets.

1. Don’t be afraid to call nhs for advice if you think you are getting worse. At one point, my son called 999 and said “my mum can’t breath”. He was told “unless her lips are blue and her head has gone floppy we won’t be coming out we are too busy”. My poor love having to listen to that.

However, It helped me focus on getting better massively as I understood the nhs was on its knees and my recovery was going to be better at home even though I was gasping for breath.

1. As my course of antibiotics finished and the steaming was helping, I started to do things like clean up and wash clothes. Don’t. Stop. They will exhaust you. Baby steps for at least a week as you will get a false sense of confidence thinking you are better and then relapse. This happened to me 3 times.

Hope this helps someone who needed hope that the chances of you getting better are higher than if you don’t.

Feel free to ask me any questions.

X

I remember having a very bad chest infection where I couldn't breathe properly fever/ loss of taste terrible cough early last year.Symptons can be very similar to corona and if I had that now I would of been convinced it was the corona virus.

@Turin, I think people underestimate children. You, of course know your son the best, not some random on the Internet.
Best wishes to you both.

I think we all need to plan for what may happen if we become seriously unwell with covid 19.

Some of the comments on this thread are truly horrible and its obvious that they're written by people who don't want to face up to the reality of this disease. You did what you could in an awful situation and it sounds like your son is doing just fine. So glad you've recovered, and thanks for your valuable tips. X

As I said up thread, I've been doing this for 10 years.
Turin
If this is on going, as it is for me, then you should contact your nearest Young Carers association.
Ours are great.

I simply don't believe for one moment that a 9 year old alone with a patient was told that by ambulance despatch

For those questioning the ambulance service’s response you need to understand that different ambulance services have different standards of response. My mum was ill with severe respiratory problems for a quarter of her adult life. She lived in West Yorkshire and then Derbyshire. Every time I or another family member called an ambulance, one would arrive within 5 minutes or, if not, a first responder/paramedic car. When I called an ambulance for her in Essex, where I live, it was a totally different experience. The first responder took 20 mins to arrive. He quickly assessed that she needed urgent hospital treatment. It took well over an hour for the ambulance to arrive. The paramedic was constantly on the phone giving the call handler a code which we realised meant that things were very, very urgent. This was early summer - i.e. not flu season. The crazy thing was that when she got to the hospital it was very quiet. It was purely an issue with the ambulance service. On speaking to other people about their experiences, it became clear that this was not an isolated incident.

Bunsy you're missing the whole point

You weren't a child alone.

@Willyoujustbequiet. Let's hope you don't need to find out just how dire things are for COVID suspected people eh?!

The reason we haven't maxed the capita in hospital is NOT because the Govt has done an amazing job in getting enough beds,equipment & staff... it's because people are not being taken in when they call for help.

Those saying 'that can't be true' need to wake the hell up!!

Amelie please read what I wrote again as clearly you missed the point.

I didnt comment on any other aspect of the story except to say that its nonsense to suggest a 9 year old child alone would have been told that by the despatch crew.

The calls are all recorded. Do you honestly believe a child alone would have received that response and there have been no safeguarding procedures followed?

Utter nonsense

* I simply don't believe for one moment that a 9 year old alone with a patient was told that by ambulance despatch *

Totally agree (that better mumsnet?)

Haven't RTFT, please report the ambulance service contact centre if that was said to him, all calls are definitely recorded. Also, how did you get a test?

@AmelieTaylor

Apparently the op didn’t want to go in because she didn’t want to put others at risk

As a single mother myself of a boy the same age - it is this particular gem that makes me

Just read that you didn't get tested, so this whole thread is pointless really, you may have had it, might not have.

We’re you worried about your son catching it?? I know they say they don’t develop symptoms but I had frantic fear of catching it and not being able to have my kids next to me.

DH has it for 3 weeks too and it was awe full mainly because it was early days and I was hysteric about it passing to the kids so locked them away from
DH and that was stressful as it was hard explaining it.

How did U go about it

I used to take 999 calls for the ambulance service.
Child callers are not hung up on and the call handler will stay on the line until the ambulance arrives.
It is simply not possible due to safeguarding procedures to hang up on a child - unless the mother took over the phone call maybe ?

Yes, thats my experience too, the call handler would stay on the phone until the first responder arrived, even if they had also spoken to me.
They take breathing problems very seriously, and especially with a child in the house.

Maybe they did speak to the OP as well, because despite talking to her son about the possibility of her dying, she didn't want to go to hospital in case she put others in danger, what the actual. I would advise anyone to probably not take that little nugget of advice

”She didn't want to go to hospital in case she put others in danger, what the actual. I would advise anyone to probably not take that little nugget of advise.”

Absolutely. If anyone has COVID symptoms and needs an ambulance or hospital, please do not stall. Your loved ones won’t be proud of you being a martyr if you die! In the ambulance or hospital, you’ll be given a face mask and possibly gloves. You’ll be put in a COVID area of the hospital. Do not delay seeking medical attention.

When I collapsed with kidney stone pain, my DD was 16. She called 999 because I was unable to speak and the operator stayed on the line until she paramedics turned up. The operator spoke to her for over 30 minutes, whilst I was slipping in and out of consciousness, then they told her that the paramedics were outside, and waited until they were attending me before she hung up.
Obviously, this was a much less busy time for ambulance services, but I was under the impression that this was procedure for children calling.

I'm very surprised if an operator left a 10 year old to cope alone, without contact, waiting for paramedics.

It's an awful state of affairs but the ambulance service is completely shredded in some places at the moment.

I was ill with very savage stomach pains the other week and had to ring 111 at 2am. Was triaged by phone for suspected appendicitis, and the doctor actually said to me 'if you get suddenly worse, don't bother ringing an ambulance, they aren't going to come. Get your husband to drive to to A & E as a matter of urgency'

If the call handler did use those words to a child, I would report them. It's not necessarily the fact that they explained they could not send resources (although I am a bit that OP was okay with that, and not terrified), but the words they apparently used that is an issue. These threads are also a bit problematic in my opinion if the person has not been tested.

babamanarama
You had your Husband with you (thank goodness!) OP is saying she was in the care of her 9 year old son, who thought his Mother was possibly dying(which she had told him could happen) there’s a world of difference.