I want to talk to you about my parents.
I don’t do this lightly, because, unlike their daughter, they are private people who don’t like their business splashed across the internet. But I think this is important, so I checked they were ok with it. And they were.
On Friday January 8th of this year, my Mum and Dad got the results back from Covid tests they’d taken the day before.
“Following your recent positive Coronavirus (COVID-19) test you and your household should isolate immediately.”
The text nobody had wanted to receive over the previous ten months.
That day 1327 Covid related deaths were recorded in the UK, after Boris Johnson’s Christmas fiasco.
The days went on, and my brother and I coordinated calling them to check in on how they were doing. They were very unwell; exhausted, sleeping a lot (mainly Mum), coughing a lot (mostly Dad), they had no appetite, and everything tasted “of coronavirus” (to use Dad’s description) which made them feel nauseated. They were definitely not in the mood to talk. Who is, when you’re that ill? So my bro and I called on alternating days, we asked about their temperatures, and their oximeter readings. I won’t go into all the ins and outs, I’m sure you can imagine them: They were both very ill. We were both very worried.
On Friday January 15 it was my brother’s day. Five minutes after he’d messaged me to say he was going to give them a call, I got a second text – “Shit Deborah. Mum’s oxygen reading is 72.”
For reference, healthy lungs should give a reading of 96 or above… the NHS website said “call 111 if it’s below 92”, “call 999 it it’s below 90”…
What happened next was a perfect example of why you should surround yourself with good people. My brother FaceTimed Dad, who was calling 999, but was very ill himself. My sister in law called me – she was going to call mum and dad’s GP to make sure they knew what was going on too. At some point during all this Mum also spoke to someone at her GP’s surgery. I texted a doctor friend to ask him a couple of things. As is always the case when you text him about something medical, he called within minutes asking questions, giving advice and informing me of statistics. The Husband, who had been in a meeting while this was all happening came downstairs just as a text came through from Dad – “An ambulance is on its way to collect Mum”.
At least she would be in the right place.
That day there were 1282 Covid related deaths recorded in the UK.
We came to the arrangement that as Dad was so ill himself, I would be the person liaising with the hospital, and my brother would be the person updating family after I’d updated him and Dad.
On Saturday January 16, I sat on my bed in London talking to a doctor near Dundee as she told me that after observing Mum for 24 hours, they had decided, with her consent, to put her in the High Dependency Unit, but that should she need to be moved onto a ventilator in Intensive Care she was healthy enough (under normal circumstances) to do that. My brother was in Edinburgh, unable to make the hour’s journey by car to visit Dad who was now seriously ill himself and home alone, having waved off his wife the day before as she was driven away in an ambulance.
That day there were 1297 Covid related deaths in the UK.
On Sunday January 17, Dad was taken into hospital too. Thankfully his condition was such that he was kept on the standard Covid Ward.
At least now he wasn’t sitting in that big house ill and alone.
That day there were 672 Covid related deaths recorded in the UK.
Over the next few days I spoke to doctors and nurses in both wards on a daily basis, they were incredible. They told me of progress, or lack of it, always stressing the unpredictability of the virus, “You need to remember that with this virus things can turn around and get worse rapidly, but for now, this is good news”. Any time I saw the hospital number flash up on my phone my heart jumped into my throat, and every time I answered, the nurse or doctor at the other end would start with “I’m calling from the hospital, don’t worry, it’s not bad news.” Imagine all the calls those people had to make every day, and that was how they had to start the conversation. When it wasn’t bad news. Not everyone was lucky enough to have that as the conversation opening.
On Tuesday January 19th Mum was moved out of HDU and onto the regular ward. When I phoned my brother to tell him we both allowed ourselves to cry a little cry of relief.
That day there were 1612 Covid related deaths in the UK.
On Thursday January 21st Dad was sent home. With an oxygen tank for company. But home was a good thing, and hopefully he wouldn’t be on the oxygen for too long.
That day there were 1292 Covid related deaths in the UK.
On Saturday January 23rd Mum was sent home too. I’ve never felt so relieved.
That day there were 1350 Covid related deaths in the UK.
On Tuesday January 26th Dad came off his at-home oxygen. We felt like we were out the other side properly.
That day there were 1633 Covid related deaths in the UK.
On Wednesday January 27th I got a message from a friend who lives in Australia. Her Dad was one of those 1633 people who had not been as lucky as my parents had been.
Mum and Dad are well on their way back to normality now. Five months after their first symptoms. They are not 100%, but they are getting there, and I feel confident they will be soon.
My parents were being sensible. They barely left their house all year. They didn’t go over to Italy as normal, they weren’t going inside houses when it wasn’t allowed, Dad was playing the odd socially distant golf game, but totally avoided the club house. They went to the supermarket once every ten days or so – that’s it. They wore masks, they used sanitiser, they kept their distance from people, but when they were shopping on December 30th the supermarket was way fuller than it had been at any time over the last ten months… and they think that’s where they caught it.
My parents are not twenty somethings, despite what they’d like to think, but they are not old and vulnerable. My dad has been in hospital once in his life, and that was the result of an accident; my mum three times – once to get her tonsils out when she was little, and twice to have babies, the last time 40 years ago. My dad played football regularly in his youth, and occasionally into his forties, he played squash in his thirties, he cycled up and down the mountains on Lake Como in his forties, he swam regularly into his fifties, and he’s played regular golf for the last 40+ years. He is a fit man. My mum would be the first to tell you she isn’t sporty, but she’s very active, she’s one of those people who doesn’t sit still for five minutes. She too, is a fit woman.
They don’t smoke, they drink very little, neither of them are overweight – they don’t tick any of the boxes that would cause alarm. Many family members and friends my parents have spoken to have been so shocked at how ill they became “because they’re so fit and healthy”.
I have tried not to get sentimental in this post, because that’s not the point of it. You don’t need to know how much I love my parents, or how caring, and fun and supportive they are. I’m not telling you this in order for you to get your violins out, but because I’ve heard people asking “but do you actually KNOW anyone who has been affected as seriously as we’re being led to believe?” And you do. Because for a fortnight in January, while I was talking daily to the incredible doctors and nurses who saved my parents, I was going over and over in my mind that I may soon find myself in the category Lady Bracknell referred to as careless.
I was not. I neither experienced a misfortune by losing one parent, nor was I careless enough to lose both. I was lucky. I know at least two people who have lost parents to Covid this last year, and I know at least two more whose parents have been on ventilators due to this infernal virus. I was lucky. My mum was told recently by her doctor that she would probably not be here today if she had not gone into hospital when she did. I was very, very lucky.
And now this new data about the Delta variant is coming in and people are angry at the thought of a delay of a few weeks. People want to ditch masks, people are refusing vaccinations, people are STILL talking about hoaxes and doctored images from India… and even if they are not in the “it’s all a conspiracy” camp, there is definitely a push to carry on with the dates despite the data. And while I wish life could snap back to normality on the 21st of June, I urge everyone to proceed slowly and carefully.
I have not seen my parents since December 28th 2019. Two weeks before the first recorded Covid related death in China. I very much hope to see them this summer.
My Name is Not Debbie 