There we were again, battling it again and I would say that this time was, you know, in terms of kind of managing it at home, it was a lot harder because all five of us were down with it at the same time. So, I was literally well [name], my husband got it last, so he was doing all the kind of meals and bringing them up to the children and myself. And then when I got it, you know, it was a case of, sorry when he got it, it was a case of, you know, literally going round all of the bedrooms, taking everyone’s temperatures. Then doing a Calpol run, then doing a fluids run, then doing the meals, then back to bed or whatever, you know, it was, it was like running a ward but being ill yourself, you know.

It was frightening, it was frightening. My, at that time we couldn’t do any of the testing, so we didn’t have that conclusive diagnosis. The GP said he thought it was highly likely it was Covid. My husband still isn’t convinced, I don’t quite understand that to be quite honest because it fitted all of the symptoms, it’s just that we didn’t have the conclusive test. But it was frightening, and it was particularly frightening because I knew that a, I knew overall, I knew that children are less likely to die from it but there was a 13-year-old in our local hospital who died from it.

Anyway I also have a good network of complementary health practitioners so I got in touch with an acupuncturist I know, he gave me some advice and so I did all of these kind of immune health boosting, like seven days having things with zinc, vitamin C.

Long Covid is it because, you know, when somebody starts Covid they are, they’ve got a kind of long Covid strain or is it because they’ve got Covid and sadly then they’ve, life’s been busy, they’re looking after family whatever, you know, they haven’t had the time to rest. I think more women are prone to long Covid than men, you know, women to be honest are much more likely to care aren’t they for their family and put their energy into that rather than looking after their selves. That’s a generalisation but it’s often the way isn’t it.

We made the whole experience of lockdown as positive as it could be by making sure that, you know, we went, first lockdown we went out on bike rides every day. You know, food became really important; we all did our, all shared the cooking, we did a sort of international day once, once a week where we sort of spun the globe, chose the food and then cooked from it, you know, so we sort of started some family traditions which we wouldn’t have done otherwise. So I see that as being kind of quite positive overall.