I know I have said this quite a few times, but I have never experienced an illness like this. I don’t just mean the physical impact it is having on me which is so unpredictable, ranging from irritating to debilitating in the space of an hour, back to a minor ailment all before lunch. The psychological impact is incredible. The unpredictable nature of the illness for one plays havoc with your wellbeing. One minute I feel well enough to go back to work, the next minute I am contemplating ringing an ambulance. I just don’t know where I am. I have tried to allow myself to be ill but this little shit keeps messing with my head. Then there is the media coverage of the disease, and constant reminders that the disease kills people in particular fat middle aged men. Then there is the helpful fly on the wall coverage of nurses in ICU. All of this sits there in the back of my mind to resurface in the early hours of the morning. Then there is the guilt, the guilt of working in the NHS but being off sick, 5 weeks after the symptoms started. Then on top of that is the emotional wreck this virus has made me.
So I cannot overestimate how much this like nothing I have ever experienced and would want to experience again, so God knows what it must be like to get so sick that you end up in hospital or ICU.
So yes we are just passed the peak, but this is a long long way from over. The next wave if we are not careful and get bored or don’t think it will happen to us, will be much worse. Please stick to the lock down, that is the only way to protect our communities and our economy.
Trust me you do not want to get this or pass it on to a loved one.
Stay home, stay safe, protect you community.
Connected Coaching 
Snap, you’ve voiced everything I’ve been feeling, including the guilt in being off. Hope you feel better soon
LikeLiked by 1 person
How many years have you served in the NHS. Bin the guilt off Matt. You have served your time, cared, helped and doubtless saved many many lives over the years. As have all of your colleagues. There are people not willing to go back to jobs that don’t involve direct contact with Covid 19. If we run out of nurses and doctors, they can call the army in. You are either well enough to work or your not. It’s that simple. None of you people need to feel guilty. The rest of us owe you all so much more than Thursday applause. I have a huge respect for what the NHS staff do – day in, day out. I have read countless books written by NHS professionals. And I have witnessed NHS staff at work, when my dad had lung cancer and I witnessed them again when my mum went into hospital, on what I didn’t realise at the time, was a one way ticket.
I feel guilt because you people are there, whilst people like me sit back, watch and wait. It’s not enough. You are not the ones to feel guilty. The fact that you do is testament to the bond you all have with your role and with your colleagues, which once again, the rest of us can only admire. Please look after yourself and your colleagues. You owe it to yourselves now – just for a change.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for those lovely words
LikeLike
I have been reading your posts matty and I’m sorry to say I’ve missed a few but I get the just. Because it’s you I have been reading about I feel more involved, closer to the story and matty I feel very sad. You have been touching my heart for over a month now and I have wished that I could take away your pain so many times. For over a month I went through all of your symptoms and more to boot, my ears bled and when my eyes weren’t crying fire they were so dry and itchy enough to scratch until they too bled, i could smell nothing and taste only very salty things and my throat felt like it had lava flowing down it and burning my chest like I had not known before. When I breathed in the pain was off the scale and if I yawned or took a deep breath I ended up on the floor. My bones felt like they were snapping and I actually missed 2 days because I was so tired I felt like I had just stopped and time flew passed me. I threw up quite often and often it was bloody and I wont go into what happened in the toilet. I had a migraine headache for one day and my temperature shot up to nearly 39.2 yet as I sat sweating I was also cold. Then I would feel very different, my skin hurt me, i couldn’t even have my fan on me, i felt like I was being held down tightly and my temperature had plummeted to hyperthermic levels of 34.8 and I was so cold, wrapped in a quilt with the heating on and an electric fire on full, i could not stop my teeth from shivering and i could not get warm. My skin especially my face turned a darker shade as if I was sun tanned and I had a few red sore patches on my legs and stomach. All of the above however hit me hard and fast but one at a time and it was early, before the lockdown and to be honest I hadn’t connected any of it to the coronavirus. Then I didn’t even notice it but one day I got up made a cuppa and ate some toast, it had gone, as quickly as it started it disappeared and I only realised about 3 days later. About a week or so later I started having really bad ear ache, very painful and it came in very sharp spells then stopped before starting again maybe half hour later. I still have this ear pain today but nowhere near as bad however for the last 3 weeks I have had very annoying very loud high pitch whistling/screaching in both ears, tinnitus perhaps I’m not sure. I still get very tired and still feel heavy but I am still here and at day 41 matty I know you will still be here too. If you was going to fall to this monster you would have fallen by now, i know it’s not a science but that is my thinking. I want to offer you a bit of comfort matty, I am a very perceptive, very clever person, I can look at something and know what is to come, i have predicted every act, every scandal, every act of cruelty that the Tory government has committed since the day they stole no. 10 and i have never been wrong. That was just useless information for you but it leads me to my point that I am convinced you are strong enough to end this and in your own time, you just haven’t figured it out yet, but regardless the virus will by now have given up on you, it hasn’t had its way and it has lost, it only has one thing now that it can do and that’s die but you know those viruses matty they are stubborn little buggers and do not like to admit defeat. Hang in there my friend remember that in your life you have been infected by a multitude of illnesses and bugs, you have had open cuts on your body. You have been kicked while you were down and yet you got up, you have beaten every single enemy that ever fancied its chances and you have always been the one standing in the aftermath, you will be the one standing after this intrusion too. I don’t know you matty but I wish I did, the way you are facing this beast gives me and I’m sure countless others so much strength. You are surrounded by voices saying more have passed, more will also pass away, it will get worse, it is spreading faster, it is gaining strength, a second wave is coming, let’s play out, you must stay at home, you are in a lock down, stay away from anyone, don’t call the doctor he won’t help you, Britain is the 2nd highest country for deaths in the world I don’t need to go on you know what is happening and being said, there is no talk of the 900k people including 3 in there 90s who have recovered, and in the end our lives, our very existence now stand in the balance and the man allegedly leading us all to victory is a god damned clown who has only failed in everything he has done since we met him but even in the face of all that here you are posting on Facebook, giving it dome attitude and still living (excuse my terminology) you strike me as a guy who is not likely to lie down and let the world have him and that is where I find you! If I can be a bit blunt you carry on mate, ignore the bastards around you, they are just trying to bring us all down while at the same time raise bojo to heights he should never be allowed to stand. You and thousands of others are doing a fine job without all of there crap, don’t even think about it, i bet in a few days you will stop and like me think to yourself bloody hell I feel better and then you will be. Stay the course buddy I am proud of you. Bloody hell don’t I go on? I hope I haven’t bored you, sorry about that, at least you can take some joy from this knowing it kept me busy for an hour or so when I was sleepless and bored. You take care buddy x
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your kind words, look after yourself
LikeLike