COVID Diaries Day 193 with some Good News

It’s been a while since I wrote an update on our life since the outbreak of COVID so I thought I’d let you know how things are going right now, with a little good news too.

None of us have had COVID but I do know three people who have, one pretty badly. My eldest daughter is back working for the NHS in a local hospital. We are hoping it doesn’t get too bad again.

My Chronic Illness and some Good News

With the COVID pandemic my appointments with my consultant have been by telephone only. This has been fine and he even arranged my hospital treatment which went along well, although it was quite surreal being in a socially distanced and masked hospital.

Just before the lockdown in May I had an MRI which showed that my brain had been bleeding and I had a swollen part on my brain. I talked to my consultant and he said it was okay so long as it didn’t get any bigger. So he said I would need another MRI in 3 months to check there was no change. Because of the pandemic the MRI was actually nearly 7 months later and I did start to get rather anxious. Then I had the MRI and the results were really good. My brain is now behaving itself and there was nothing else to report. Phew!

It did make me think though. A lot of people have complained about appointments being delayed and people missing out on vital treatments and diagnosis, especially for cancer. (My anomaly was not cancerous.) I had to wait an extra 4 months for my scan and it was fine….but what if it wasn’t, what if it had grown and become dangerous, what if it had reached the point that treatment had become dangerous? It’s not good for me to think like that, but it does make me think of all the other people who have not had the good news I had.

The hospitals have had it difficult. People are constantly saying that there was never an issue, but I really don’t believe that they would deliberately delay treatments and appointments unless their hands were tied. It’s a really difficult situation and it’s not likely to get any better as we approach even more COVID hospital appointments. I just hope they have learnt a lot of lessons both in the hospitals and the government. Fingers crossed.

Back to School

The Little Man went back to school first but it was a hard decision. It didn’t help that on his first day back he ended up having a really nasty fall and spraining his wrist. He also caught a tummy bug which he kindly shared with us all just as the girls were going to go back! Then I had to spend a week in hospital for my treatment and the whole school situation became a nightmare. We decided to give up on the first week back and start again. The schools were understanding.

So, they all went back and afterwards the Little Man and Boo were happy but Star went to her bedroom and refused to talk to us. She then refused to go to school the next day. I chatted with the school and they said it was ok for her to do a gradual return of just a couple of hours a day to start with.

She went into school, spoke to a teacher and seemed okay. Then she got sick again. She’s still not been back. I’m not sure if her illness (Which I know is very real and physical) is down to anxiety. I am waiting for a call from our GP to try and get to the bottom of it (Bottom being the relative word here!)

The Future

For us, the future will be just taking precautions so that we don’t catch the virus. The Little Man is much happier being back at school, but I know that Boo is struggling (even though it’s hard to get her to open up about it.) And Star is struggling with her health and anxiety. I’m putting a lot of trust in the schools to keep them safe.

My daughter is back at work and Graham is the taxi driver of the house. She used to go to work on the bus but we don’t want to take that risk just yet. Especially as the numbers of COVID cases in our area are really growing at the moment.

My life hasn’t changed much. I don’t get out of the house very often anyway, usually it’s just hospital appointments. It feels kind of sad that summer is over without our summer holiday. We will make up for it next year I’m sure.

I’m still planning Christmas, it won’t be cancelled here. We generally only spend Christmas with our immediate family though. There are seven of us that live here so plenty of company. We do usually have a few relatives around to visit before Christmas but that will probably not happen this year.

So many months now we’ve had this virus hanging over us. We have to carry on with our lives, but we have to be careful too. We should take better care of our elderly population who have suffered so much. I can’t believe how much they have been let down. There is so much that could have been done better, but so much that needs to be done still to help us get back to normal. Some people refuse to accept a new normal, and many will reject a vaccination, but we all need to stand by our choices and make sure that whatever we choose we can always choose to be kind and think of others.

Or maybe I’m a dreamer?

(I’m not the only one!)