John spent the next week in bed. Day 5 was his worst day. He actually thought he would need to be admitted, but he didn’t get any worse so stayed in his bedroom. With the new rules that were enforced everyone in the house had to stay in the house for 7 days if you had the symptoms first and 14 days for everyone else in the house. This had ruined Helen’s plans for two weeks. She had managed to work out of the spare room, doing telephone appointments and co-ordinating the clinics. Neither Helen or Tobey ended up getting sick. John was sick for 2 weeks in total.
John had a shock when he returned to work, Sanjay had been admitted to ICU, and his wife Rupal had been admitted onto the infectious diseases ward. His daughters were being cared for by his sister. It was uncertain if Sanjay would make it. That really knocked John, he could not comprehend that Sanjay could be that sick, he ran marathons for fucks sake.
Debbie who worked in his team had gone on maternity leave whilst he had been off, so the team had been heavily depleted. This was going to be a really hard few months with just him, Amanda and Phillipa.
Helen had thrown herself back into work after a long 2 weeks working from home. She was successfully running 2 satellite clinics a week and running telephone clinics. The team was working really hard and being as flexible as they could be to keep things running.
The next few months were a whirlwind for both Helen and John. John spent a lot of his time doing staff support drop-ins, in the canteen of the main hospital giving away hand creams and being a sympathetic ear. He was also picking up referrals for one to one conversations, the majority of these were delivered virtually. By May John was also delivering leadership training online.
As summer approached the country started to open up, as pubs and restaurants opened. Both John and Helen were not sure of the wisdom of this, having had firsthand experience of the disease. Sanjay was still in hospital but luckily had recovered enough to be moved to the infectious diseases ward, Rupal had been discharged, but was struggling with long-covid. Her sister in-law had moved in with her to help her look after the girls.
Debbie had a little girl called Esme, John thought that was a stupid name but as Helen pointed out, he was a grumpy old git, especially since his episode of covid. The aftereffects of covid were still lingering with John well over a month after he had it. He was regularly breathless, struggled to concentrate and had intense short-lasting headaches, that made him quite short-tempered. Despite that John, Helen and Tobey were getting on well living together. Helen was very conscious of how she could be quite demanding, so was making a conscious effort to listen to both John’s and Tobey’s point of view. John was clear that he wanted everyone to have their own space in the house, and that any niggles were discussed and ironed out before they became big issues. Tobey was more than happy, that he was included in decisions made in the house and his opinion was heard. The only thing that got on his nerves was his Dad’s questionable taste in music, particularly his recent obsession with Nick Drake, and his insistence on playing Pink Moon on vinyl every Sunday morning. Both Tobey and Helen hated Nick Drake and in particular that album. He felt there needed to be an intervention on this soon.
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