I think it was on the 4th of May [2020] they moved me from ICU into a normal ward, recovery ward where there were three other guys in that ward with me and again, everyone was very, very sort of Covid aware. So, you’d see a nurse come to see you, visit you at your bed and once they’d finished with you, they would then strip off all their PPE gear, all their aprons, chuck it all away and put a whole new set on to go and do the next guy so you could just see the difficulty they’ve got in doing their job. It just seems like they’re wrapped up in new processes to enable them to do their job but, yes, you’ve got nothing much else to do obviously when you’re sat there but observe the nurses and try and talk to them and all that sort of stuff.

Then when you did speak to your wife for the first time, so you mentioned you didn’t have a voice yet, so it was… So, what did that whole situation look like? So, they brought an iPad, you said.

Yes, they brought an iPad. I couldn’t use my… so incomprehensible for me, I couldn’t use my phone because it was too cumbersome. It’s not a massive phone. It’s the new iPhone 11 so it’s quite chunky but I just wasn’t able to physically operate it; a) I couldn’t’t speak, b) I couldn’t’t hold it up and I couldn’t’t do the numbers. I wasn’t very… I guess I wasn’t very with it, I suppose. So, yes, that first time the nurse would hold it up like that and just there, it’s my wife and she would be talking to me because she knew I couldn’t’t talk. They’d obviously given her a bit of a pre-chat to say, look, you know, he can’t talk but he’s just been doing this, that and the other and he’s awake, he’s kind of with it so talk to him and encourage him, which is what she did. So, she was just sort of saying, you’re doing fantastically well and your daughter’s here with you… me and here's the dog and it’s lovely and sunny. We’re fine. We’re waiting for you, and all that sort of stuff.

So, all conversations, I think, were aimed at giving me hope to just get better and, yes, they were a real morale booster for me, and I think that’s a brilliant idea if, in the entire ward, in a situation where you cannot have your family or friends. I think if I’d been involved in a motorcycle accident or something or, you know, I’m sure that in a normal situation you’d be able to be beside your partner, holding their hand, without being covered in PPE… you know, all that gear and it would help. There's a connection there, isn’t there? So, this is very new for the nurses and the doctors and for the patients and for the husbands and wives and families at home that are not able to come and see you or drop stuff off for you. So that’s where I got that sense that I felt that the nurses might be struggling with that because they can’t… they must feel that they’re not doing their job to the full extent of their ability.

Yes, so that was one of the reasons that we wanted to raise some cash to buy more iPads because I know that the priority for cash must be to go to more equipment for essential things so that’s part of the fundraising that we’re doing is to try and buy iPads but also to make sure that we push up the agenda that mental health aspect.

So once I started doing it, yes, it was pretty hard the first few times but once you start getting into it and get your appetite back, the hospital and my local NHS had sent a load of these amazing shakes which were so full of nutrients and god knows what, I was drinking two of those a day, just cramming myself full of nutrients and extra protein and stuff like that to try and kickstart my muscle mass coming back. I looked at myself in the mirror and my legs were just like two poles. It’s amazing how quickly your muscle just falls away. So I’d lost all my muscle mass but like I said, after six weeks by mid-July, end July I was feeling pretty good, well enough to go to Cornwall and take in some sun, have a bit of a laugh and, yes, ever since then I’ve renewed my love for being fit, decided that although I still feel, I don’t know what the correct term for it is but I would just say, slightly chesty, you know, there’s always a bit of congestion in my chest and I think that the exercise is good to get rid of that.

So that’s when I decided that I would get a new mountain bike and I would do this challenge. It was something that I always wanted to do but to give myself a target, to make it 31 March which was the day that I was put into an induced coma last year to be actually on the South Downs cycling a hundred miles on 13,000ft of elevation is a good way to say to Covid, you know, stuff you, but also a good way to say to the guys at [hospital], thank you, you know. It’s a credit to you that I’m well enough today to do that. It was the care that was given then, that I’m reaping the benefits of now. It’s a very strange way to look at it but I think it’s a good kick up the arse for me to realise just how precious life is and, yes, not to be squandered.

…since I did that JustGiving site for this cycle ride, believe it or not, I’m raising money for the hospital and some of the people who have donated are nurses that looked after me which has totally blown my mind.

Like I said, they looked after me and the one thing that they, and when I say they, I’m talking about the respiratory nurses that I’m in contact with and contact me, they would love me to go back or other patients to go back into ITU to see, well, that’s the bed that you were in, you know, so you can get closure on it and I think that’s important. I think that’s important for me, personally, to see where I was and also if I hear a news programme or if I’m watching the news and they’re in hospital and I hear that beeping in the background. There’s a certain kind of beep, I think it must be just the machine that does the…measures the heartbeat, the oxygen, everything. I get a bit of a, oh, urggh, I get a bit of a funny chill up my spine because in a lot of my dreams there was a song with that noise in it or something like that so it can take you straight back there when you hear that noise. So I’d just like to see that machine and look at it in the face and think, okay, that’s what it is. That’s what it was doing. Yes, you never know.

So, were they planning for you to see the ward at all?

Say it again sorry.

Would they show you the ward in normal times or did they talk about wanting to show you the ward?

Yes, they’ve talked about wanting to do that and I think they feel it’s an important part of your journey to have seen it, to know where you were, where you survived and all that sort of stuff. So obviously they can’t do that at the moment because we’re in the second wave and that might go on for a lot more months, but I think it’s certainly in the programme to bring people back. Because it must be good for them to see someone that they cared for who has made a recovery, wants to come back and see where they were but also for them to be thanked or say hello. It would be great to be able to give someone a hug, wouldn’t it, just say thank you and shake their hand maybe but, you know, who knows, we’ll have to wait and see.

I mean, all those sorts of emotions of the dreams were about getting to a kind of destination. I think, for me and that that might have been my own drive to kind of want to get well would be my light at the end of my tunnel that was driving me on. I know I had a lot of people, and whether it’s the right or the wrong thing to say, I’m not a deeply religious person, I don’t believe in a particular God. I mean, I’m lucky enough maybe like you to have travelled around all over the place and been to Asia and other parts of the world and have witnessed different Gods and all that sort of stuff. And the problems it can create but I do have a faith in something or other and there were a lot of people who were sending positive vibes to me. I have some stories of my daughter’s boyfriend has a strong Italian connection and his mother is a Reiki healer and there was an entire congregation of a family in Italy praying for me through him, through my…it’s stuff like that. I’m thinking, well, I don’t know, did that have any effect? Is that worth contemplating? Is that real?

I think it was the meetings I had with the two individuals who went on to become unwell, but they weren’t as unwell as myself. They just literally went home with what they described as a really bad flu and a terrible cough. They lost their voice, but they recovered, whereas I think I must have received a big viral load of it and, yes, I didn’t have any strong underlying health conditions. So, yes, I think it was probably in those meetings with those guys and unfortunately, we weren’t as careful about it then as we are now. Now you wouldn’t dream of going into a meeting room with someone for half an hour, you know, a small meeting room. Like, you know, we’re talking now, you wouldn’t dream of doing it because you might be coughing and pass a mug to someone or, you know, share a pen or something silly. So, I guess it was in those two meetings, one in particular where the guy was pretty…he looked visibly unwell and had a bit of a sweat and he was sort of coughing. I sent him home, but I stayed in that room, and I worked in that room for most of that day, so I think that’s probably where I got it, but it took a good two weeks.

Okay, so in early March 2020 I was in a meeting with a couple of individuals who weren’t very well. They worked for me, and I eventually sent them home. At that particular time Covid had kind of just been mentioned. No-one really knew what was going on. Subsequent to that, about two weeks later I started to feel unwell, and I assumed it was just the flu, so I was at home for about eight days feeling unwell. The symptoms, as have been described, the only thing I didn’t have was any loss of taste or sense of smell, but I have to say, I wasn’t particularly aware of that because I was becoming quite delirious, according to my wife. She became very concerned because I kept thinking I was fine, just taking paracetamol and being hot and cold and hot and cold and all that sort of stuff, a horrible cough. Then she took the decision to call 111, had a conversation, passed the phone to me. I remember having a conversation with a doctor and I think before I’d even passed the phone back to my wife, the doctor had already called an ambulance.