Which specific moment from this will stay with you forever?

[RosieLemonade]

Positive or negative.

My Mother is hospital for over 2 .5 weeks dying and not being able to visit the sweetest old lady in the world
Heartbreaking as with her old age came confusion and as a family we visited all the time to help her in daily life. We were not able to say goodbye or hold her hand and she was alone. Still have very sad moments thinking about her in bed confused and alone and obviously very ill.
Just say my prayers the nurses were as lovely as the ones we met a lot in my dear Mums later years
Pray she was at peace and asleep while poorly ......... very very hard even now after 11 months.

For me it was having a long conversation with my husband in early January about how, if this did come to the UK, we needed to start stocking up and preparing to only leave the house when absolutely necessary in order to protect our baby. Figuring out how to make that work with DH still going into a big city to work etc. Then the news being on constantly with more updates about coronavirus everyday.

February 2020 travelling back from a fabulous weekend in Edinburgh. My son was sat in the front seat. I has a few private tears in the back seat because I knew things were about to get very tough for children

Being so overwhelmed one day that I sat in the garden so I could cry in peace and the kids wouldn't see

The very first patient with confirmed Covid that I was involved in treating.

A few things. The good - spending so much time with my kids in the garden. Playing, laughing, just having a really fun and laid back summer. The bad - telling my Nan in March that I wouldn’t be taking her to Tesco for a while. It was the only time she left the house and she was so upset. Watching her lowering the kids Easter eggs out of a window in this silly pulley system she made. It was heartbreaking, she just wanted to hug them but she was too frightened. The ugly - my nan having a fall on the evening of VE Day. The hours following her fall must have been so scary for her, alone in her house not able to reach her phone to call for help. Her being in hospital, out of her mind on painkillers telling me all of her delusions and trying to convince her it wasn’t real. Her moving in with my Mum, just seeing her through a window, so small and frail. Then the phone call that she’d had a bad turn in the night and was in hospital. She died from a massive bleed on her brain - no one knows why. The only saving grace was that my Mum worked at the hospital, so she was allowed to go with her. She sat with her, unconscious, until she passed. I was the only one who had it together enough to call family, and tell my 13 year old brother. Then coming home to tell my 6 year old she was gone. She was my best friend and last summer will haunt me forever.

After years of working hard and finally getting the nursing job that suits my family/life balance and really enjoying it, being moved back to the wards in both the first and second wave. It’s like a nightmare tbh as I made a conscious decision that part of my nursing career was behind me. However covid and staffing in the hospital had other ideas. My stress levels are through the roof tbh, I know we are in a pandemic and I need to help out BUT it has really affected me.

@Bertiebiscuit

Realising that after all the Apocalypse now helicopters flying noisily overhead day & night putting the Nightingale hospital together on my doorstep that at my age if I got sick they would just let me die anyway. It really sank in how little older people are valued & made me determined not to get ill whatever it cost me - staying in, taking no risks, wearing masks every time I stepped outside. I will never forget this insult

Telling DM that it wasn’t me that was stopping her visiting.

Taking my daughter to school for her last ever day of sixth form feeling like he had been so badly cheated out of so much.
Still hurts now. No prom, no results day. She’s totally ok with it and thriving at university but I didn’t really think that day in March would be the last. I thought they would get to go back. I didn’t believe at the time it would be the last time I ever drove my only child to school.

The relief of furlough when my industry just dropped off a cliff in April. Returning after the summer and realising my boss is a total tosser handing in my notice and starting my own business

Collecting dd (age 4) from school that last day when schools closed last March. She handed me a picture she had drawn with sunshine and rainbows on. Made me sad how innocent she was and she had no idea what was to come.

The first two weeks of the the first lockdown and London roads were empty. I tell my children that I will tell their children about it one day because it was so remarkable. I was a community carer who spent the days driving between service users homes and it was fantastic. The traffic returned pretty quickly after the first two weeks but i can’t think of any other way I’ll ever get to feel like I was the only person out in a major city.

One negative (there are far more negatives than positive) was was when I attended a service user and realised that she was very very poorly. So poorly that I needed to call 999. I spent 25 minutes on hold to get through to the 999 number. The ambulance took 7 hours to arrive and as she had no family or next of kin, I sat with her until they took her to hospital. I got home at 3:15am and had be back at work for 6:30am for a 15 hour shift as the company said they couldn’t cover me.

When Boris announced the first lockdown on 23rd March which was also my 60th birthday-a birthday like no other!

My teen son just led on me crying. Not dramatic tears and sobbing but just upset and depressed at everything.

Seeing the empty shelves on my way home in the huge Richmond Sainsbury’s. Not just empty fruit and veg but the whole store was empty of food. That really scared me even though I had a larder full ready for Brexit. A few highlights were spending time with my daughter home from uni going for long summer nature walks around bits of our local area she had never visited. Chatting and Getting to know each other again after 3 years of her being away. Her getting excepted to do her PHD in virology after stressful online exams, very apt

Not a moment so much as a feeling -

The feeling of fighting every goddamn day to keep the business I run alive.

I spent so so long building it up, I put so much work into it, so many different types of people rely on it. 2020 was meant to be a bumper year. Just trying to explain it to my friends the other day, I couldn't stop crying.
And these lockdowns will have ramifications for us for years to come. I'm exhausted already thinking about the fact that I'm not going to be able to sleep properly for years as the after effects and anxiety continues to plague me.

I honestly feel like I've been in a constant state of heightened anxiety since I first heard the PM on the TV say that we were going into lockdown. I thought I was in a nightmare, it was all a big movie or something, and any minute someone was going to go "haha it's alright, it was a joke!".

The last couple of days the children were in school before the March lockdown. Our school backs on to the playing field and they were all having so much fun. I sobbed and didn’t stop even when I was collecting from school (I think it was worse as I had a Year 6 leaver). I appreciate so many people have much worse ‘stand out’ reasons and feel very lucky x

One of my fears was that I would drop my children to their dad and then something would happen and I wouldn’t be allowed to go and get them. The idea of us being separated and that I couldn’t get them still makes me feel sick with fear.

Spending two weeks how to mothball my construction site for the foreseeable future, without detrimental effect. Then being told it had been determined as nationally critical infrastructure and to crack on ASAP, with as few site staff as possible.

Looking at what was happening in Europe & knowing it would be us next. Getting up at 2am to be sure of getting an online slot. Reading the dept of health discharge guidelines in first lockdown, seeing that older ppl would be discharged to care homes without testing and having a zoom call with aghast & horrified colleagues in social care about how many would die because of it

Good things too though. The silence brought by the lack of traffic, setting up a street WhatsApp group so that all the neighbours could keep in touch, may bank holiday socially distanced street drinks, feeling of togetherness (sadly zapped by the cummings affair)

There are lots of moments I will never forget but at the start when the news was reporting 800 people a day dying in Italy was a shock ..obviously things got much worse after that everywhere and still
Is ..

Also not getting to see my only child graduate. I have no photo of her in her gown

Negative - my Dad died early on during lockdown one. Only me and my Sister saw him 5 weeks previous to that (everyday) I am sad his family and many friends weren't able to say goodbye to him properly.

Positive - I always enjoyed being at home. I like a simple life.