Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Covid

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Original poster

What one moment will always stay with you from this?

568 replies

Ostryga · 08/08/2021 03:04

Mine was realising panic shopping was everywhere, and that I needed to buy an entire food shop for Dd and I before lockdown.

I cried when I found a shop with chicken and milk.

The fear I felt of the virus at that time, and also not being able to make sure we had food is something I hope to never repeat.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
Madhairday · 08/08/2021 23:24

This thread is so poignant.

For me, the day I got my first shielding text, followed by a bewildering amount of texts and letters telling me to stay away from my family, sleep apart, eat apart, use different cutlery, different bathrooms if possible, not go aside at all (but I was allowed to open a window). I honestly then felt it was a death sentence and I actually sat and wrote down what I'd like for my funeral service. Then I took note of all the shielding advice and didn't touch my DH or children for five months. It's staggering, looking back, but I think we all did the best we could with what was known. When I shielded in lockdown 2 I didn't shield quite so extremely.

The moment I realised that as a CEV person there were people on here and other platforms that thought I was expendable and 'near death anyway' so wouldn't really count on covid stats. I started to see a shift in thinking where lives were measured one against the other in terms of worthiness and those like me failed the test. It really sunk in with the rhetoric around the great Barrington thing and all the posts about the young sacrificing for the vulnerable. I felt in the way and it really shot my mental health already fragile from shielding.

When our church went online only and I wondered when we'd sing together again (last week, as it turned out)

Setting up a whatsapp group for our street and putting invites through everyone's door, since then we've all been much closer and had garden parties etc, looked out for one another.

The day I found out my friends 29 year old DD had died of covid.

The day my 50 year old friend died of covid.

Then the day the Pfizer vaccine was approved and I danced around the lounge with my dd.

All my dds uni experience so poor for her first two years. Her having to defer a year due to covid meaning she couldn't get a placement (veterinary).

DS missing all his GCSEs and y11 leavers stuff. And both of them being so practical and compassionate about it all and saying it didn't matter at all in the scheme of things.

PopcornMuncher · 08/08/2021 23:25

StopGo that's awful Sad I'm.not sure I could forgive that either Flowers

Madhairday · 08/08/2021 23:29

I'm so very sorry, @StopGo. I cross posted. I just can't imagine the pain you have been through Flowers

StopGo · 08/08/2021 23:32

Thank you for your support. It means a lot

HariboBrenshnio · 08/08/2021 23:36

Becoming a single parent in the first lockdown, and listening to Boris tell us in January we were going into another lockdown so the kids would be at home until feb half term (they didn't go back until after Easter). I cried and I cried. I felt so exhausted by the sheer craziness of the previous year and so hopeful for 2021 with the vaccine rollout and it all just came crashing down. Seeing friends give birth alone - some in masks - loved ones not being able to go to funerals, babies meeting family behind screens, people locked into care homes, hearing of young people killing themselves because of being lockdown with poor mental health, working for a cancer charity and hearing more and more awful stories of losing young mothers/fathers to curable cancers.. it's been truly horrific and although there has been some lovely moments in the first lockdown with the kids and the sun we got, I'm so glad to leave it behind.

Bythemillpond · 08/08/2021 23:38

The day we realised that no one in the family had a job anymore and we had to fill out forms for UC

Amima · 08/08/2021 23:40

I remember the first time I went to the supermarket in about 10 months, to get a few Xmas bits that were missing from my online order. It was late at night and the one and only cashier didn’t have a mask on. I was so angry and terrified, I dumped my trolley and walked out. Like I couldn’t bring myself to approach her because she wasn’t wearing a mask. I thought how the fuck am I supposed to pay when I can’t go near her?! I sat in the car for ages just sobbing and hyperventilating. Then I made a formal complaint about her saying if she couldn’t wear a mask she shouldn’t be on the till because she was risking customers lives.

Amima · 08/08/2021 23:46

Oh, and the day in June 2020 when my gran fell down the concrete steps 20ft from the front door of the GP surgery and broke her leg, and they all refused to come out and give first aid because of Covid! I had to piggyback her to the car park and drive her to A&E because all the ambulances were too busy with Covid cases to come out and help her.

NotSonicTheHedgehog · 08/08/2021 23:50

@Amima

Oh, and the day in June 2020 when my gran fell down the concrete steps 20ft from the front door of the GP surgery and broke her leg, and they all refused to come out and give first aid because of Covid! I had to piggyback her to the car park and drive her to A&E because all the ambulances were too busy with Covid cases to come out and help her.
In June 2020? When cases were at their lowest? All the ambulances were busy with Covid were they? Hmm
IndigoC · 08/08/2021 23:54

@Amima

Oh, and the day in June 2020 when my gran fell down the concrete steps 20ft from the front door of the GP surgery and broke her leg, and they all refused to come out and give first aid because of Covid! I had to piggyback her to the car park and drive her to A&E because all the ambulances were too busy with Covid cases to come out and help her.
That’s horrendous. I’m so sorry.
Crunchymum · 08/08/2021 23:56

@Amima

I remember the first time I went to the supermarket in about 10 months, to get a few Xmas bits that were missing from my online order. It was late at night and the one and only cashier didn’t have a mask on. I was so angry and terrified, I dumped my trolley and walked out. Like I couldn’t bring myself to approach her because she wasn’t wearing a mask. I thought how the fuck am I supposed to pay when I can’t go near her?! I sat in the car for ages just sobbing and hyperventilating. Then I made a formal complaint about her saying if she couldn’t wear a mask she shouldn’t be on the till because she was risking customers lives.
Dear God
Porcupineintherough · 08/08/2021 23:58

@Amima

Oh, and the day in June 2020 when my gran fell down the concrete steps 20ft from the front door of the GP surgery and broke her leg, and they all refused to come out and give first aid because of Covid! I had to piggyback her to the car park and drive her to A&E because all the ambulances were too busy with Covid cases to come out and help her.
In June 2020? Was this in the UK?
Amima · 09/08/2021 00:00

Dear God
Indeed. I was absolutely terrified after the government spent months purposely making everyone too scared to go out. They achieved their goal but at what cost! I’ve always had health anxiety and mental health problems, and being shown death figures every day and news reports of horrific deaths just tipped me over the edge.

Ofallthebarsinalltheworld · 09/08/2021 00:01

I think that I will always remember the silence. I've never experienced anything like it or want to again.

Amima · 09/08/2021 00:02

In June 2020? Was this in the UK?
Yep. And yes the ambulance did refuse to come out to a pensioner with a broken leg. They said it wasn’t serious enough for them to come out.

IceLace100 · 09/08/2021 00:07

Supermarket shelves empty and no carbs of any description available in local sainsburys. The fear of god it put into me. Ditto for paracetamol.

The feeling of freedom and elation I got when I first got in the car after months of not using it.

Crying in the car (so no one could hear) when my dad caught corona at the start of lockdown 1.

Not being able to sing hymns at my aunts funeral.

IndigoC · 09/08/2021 00:08

Late February/Early March, our last visit to the supermarkets for a very long time. This was weeks before most people in the UK were paying attention to C19. The big shop was Tesco, but in M&S we filled a trolley and went to the self checkout because we didn’t want contact with the cashier. We were wearing gloves (the plastic kind, lol) and attracted the attention of one of the workers, an older lady who was most disgruntled with us using the self-checkout with a loaded trolley (there was no one else in the Food Hall — it was late at night). She’d gotten it into her head I think that the gloves meant we were pulling off some sort of heist. She stationed herself a few yards away, fixed us with a beady glare, and kept yelling out to the cashier “I’m watching them!”

I think of her often, wonder if she eventually put 2+2 together as to why we were being so weird. Grin

Fred56 · 09/08/2021 00:11

So scared at first looking at what was happening in other countries. I'm obese plus have asthma controlled but do have uncontrolled flare ups so was very concerned initially DH more so and I was supply teaching 3 days a week in a reception class. I remember writing goodbye letters to my DS and DD aged 7&4 at the time. Still have them I don't know what to do with the them. But I'll also remember the times I've had teaching my own two some absolutely wonderful moments. We've been very lucky ourselves but know of close friends and families not so fortunate including a dear friend who at the moment, her father although having both vaccines is on a ventilator suffering from covid.

ItallwentwrongwhenBowieleft · 09/08/2021 00:13

Speaking to my Stepdad for the last time on the phone, he was in hospital with Covid & very confused.
The day after we were told there was no hope.
We spent the next week waiting for ‘the call’ to say he was gone.
None of us could be with him, he could no longer speak on the phone, we relied on nurses to tell us how he was doing, having to trust he was being well looked after & was comfortable.
They promised us they made sure he wasn’t alone when he died but we’ll never really know.
It is the most cruel way to lose a much loved family member & makes it so much harder to come to terms with.
Only 6 people could go to the funeral and my poor DM was too high risk to go.
The hearse went to my mum’s house on the way to the crematorium so my mum could say goodbye.
Loads of family & friends lined to road to see him off, all maintaining 2m distance.
My mum was now so terrified of catching Covid she wouldn’t let any of us near or hug her.
Watching my mum standing alone saying goodbye through the window of a hearse and calling ‘Goodbye Darling’ as he left was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.

IceLace100 · 09/08/2021 00:17

None of the family being able to visit a terminally ill relative in a hospice.

MercyBooth · 09/08/2021 00:33

@Dreamstate I am also a member of the Comfort Consumption Club. I know EXACTLY where you are coming from
Im also an ex successful slimmer. I lost ten stone at SW.

Thegreymethod · 09/08/2021 01:02

I remember the very first morning after the first lockdown and I got up and it just felt so quiet no one in the streets no cars going past it was eery, I remember wanting to nip into the back garden and my mind went blank and I couldn't remember if you were allowed in the garden so I ran there and back! Seems crazy now!
Also queuing up at the supermarket and I'd been in the queue for ages and suddenly looked up and my mum was walking past to join the queue, total coincidence and I burst into tears because I hadn't seen her in so long! I'm not a crier at all usually but I felt so emotional.
And thirdly my husband works in food logistics so they were obviously very busy and he had to work overtime most weekends, one month he had 1 day off in the whole month and I've never treasured a day like it in my life having another adult to talk too!

mrsanflowerpot · 09/08/2021 01:10

DH moving out two weeks before lockdown because he was on Covid wards and DS has respiratory issues. Didn't return till July.

Teaching in the final week before the announcement and school feeling like a scary place but trying to convince the kids all was fine. The school closure announcement and trying to work out what it meant for my own kids if I was teaching.

The lockdown and shielding announcement followed within an hour by a text informing me DS was identified as extremely clinically vulnerable and must remain at home for a minimum of 12weeks, followed by a letter in the post from "Matt" and Robert Jenrick a couple of days later saying we should open a window but not go to the garden if DS needed fresh air and have a suitcase and mobile phone packed for him in case he got ill and needed to be taken to hospital because he'd have to go alone. He was 6. I was bloody terrified and couldn't get through to DH for days because of his shifts. Remember sitting with DS, DD (10) and eeking out the food we had, trying to stay jolly for them, and the vulnerable students I was contacting daily as I am my schools pastoral deputy head. I remember the irony of remotely trying to sort food deliveries out for families whilst worrying I might run out of food for my own children, but trying to focus on what those families needed.

In some ways the fear remains and in some ways it feels like it was a film.

Bakewellisntjustacake · 09/08/2021 01:42

When I got moved from paediatric icu to adult in another hospital then a month later going back to my original hospital but still having adult patients as they used our icu as overflow, knowing we only had 1 bed for a child left. It was awful. And we used the entire stock of anaesthetic in 2 hours as no one thought to give us more as adult use 10 x as much medication if not 100 x as much. Ringing the pharmacy and crying asking to send us more sedatives and they said they'd have to go to the adult hospital next door and it would take time but my patients were waking up and being entirely helpless.

GintyMcGinty · 09/08/2021 01:51

I have 3

  1. when swing parks closed
  2. when people went crazy at others for buying things like fence paint as it wasn't 'essential'
  3. when I realised that I would have to make more than half my colleagues redundant