I didn’t want to write this until I was sure everything was okay and today I got the thumbs up. 😀 My best friend Al and his housemate Ffion caught the Corona Virus in late March. Ffion is a part-time care worker who helps the elderly in the evenings, baths them and gets them safely into bed. On all occasions she’s worn PPE since the end of February. On April 6th Ffion was admitted to hospital with a fever and breathlessness. On April 11th Al was admitted with a fever and an inability to breathe on his own. Both were put on antibiotics and isolated, Al was ventilated, both were being watched 24/7.
Ffion was luckier than Al, she recovered and was well enough to be released on April 17th. She has since gone back to her care work taking many more precautions to protect her clients. Al stayed in hospital, ventilated and isolated, while his mother and Ffion sent him messages of love and support, passing on messages from his friends and family through WhatsApp messages to one of his carers, who had given Al’s mother and Ffion his number and told them he would pass on every message they sent for Al. He did. What an absolute star.! Thanks to him Al received messages of love, support and encouragement, letting him know his friends and family were there for him, that he would never be alone, even in isolation.
After 8 days on a ventilator, he was well enough to breathe by himself, albeit slowly and painfully. He was very weak, had lost a lot of weight and was dehydrated, despite his drip. On May 4th he was well enough to be released into the care of his mother and Ffion and allowed home. He’s still very weak and Ffion says he sounds like a chain-smoking asthmatic but otherwise he’s doing much better. Al has massive scarring on his lungs and will wheeze and whistle when he breathes for a long time to come, but he’s alive and he’s back in his own home and eternally grateful to be there.
As am I. Life without that guy would be bleak. He is a fabulous silver unicorn in a rainbow world and without him every rainbow would be grey. Today he had the strength to email me and show himself on Facebook, just for a few minutes… but those few minutes were the best few minutes of my entire past month.!
Dear Diary... 