Hazeem

Hazeem had Covid in August 2021 and spent three days in hospital. An ECG detected an abnormal heart rhythm, and he was diagnosed with Brugada syndrome (the condition affects the way electrical signals pass through the heart and it can cause the heart to beat dangerously fast). He lost his sense of taste and smell; his taste has returned but his sense of smell is limited. Hazeem’s body strength has reduced, and he gets more tired and out of breath much faster, which limits how much he can do in one day. His plans for work have changed since having Covid but he is hoping he will be able to find some other work. He draws strength from his Muslim faith and hopes for a better future. Hazeem was interviewed in May 2022.

Hazeem had chills, temperature, and fatigue when he tested positive for Covid in August 2021. Through the night the chills became worse, and he was vomiting frequently. He has never felt as bad as he did that night and he called for an ambulance. The paramedics did an ECG which showed an irregular heart rhythm and Brugada syndrome and they took him to hospital. Hazeem felt scared. The doctors were unsure if the Brugada syndrome was from childhood or as a result of Covid.

He stayed in hospital for 3 days until his chills passed. He was able to speak to his family on video calls, but the time spent in hospital was scary for Hazeem because he did not know what was happening to him.

Hazeem lost his sense of taste and smell with Covid. His sense of taste returned within a couple of weeks, but his sense of smell is still limited. He still can’t smell the way he used to; he can no longer smell the fresh air or perfumes, but he can smell really strong smells like if something is burning or on fire. Hazeem’s doctor told him his smell will return and as it’s not completely gone, he’s not too worried about it. His heart condition is more of a worry for himself and his wife.

Hazeem’s body strength has also decreased since having Covid. Due to Brugada syndrome, Hazeem can no longer use the gym or do heavy lifting. He gets tired and out of breath a little quicker than before. Before Covid, Hazeem could do his gardening and lawn mowing in one day but now he needs to split it over two days because he gets out of breath. He hasn’t spoken to his doctor about it.

Hazeem is having follow up care for his Brugada syndrome diagnosis and he may need to have a pacemaker fitted. Having Brugada syndrome also affects the type of work Hazeem can do. He recently failed a medical to be a taxi driver and is now looking at what other work he might be able to do with his medical condition.

Hazeem hasn’t read too much about Long Covid because he doesn’t find it easy to translate some of the English words, but if someone talked to him about it he would like to learn.

Having been in hospital with Covid, he is scared of catching Covid again and needing to return to hospital, so he avoids crowded places. Hazeem felt a bit uncertain about the vaccine at first but since having Covid he says Covid is worse, so he has had his vaccines.

He draws strength from his Muslim faith, and he tries to stay positive that the future will be better.

Hazeem has had to reduce his work hours due to symptoms despite being the primary earner for his family.

Financially obviously is a bit hard, it’s not like before when you worked, fully work and earn decent money but we have a little bit of savings, we have, and we are surviving on that getting a little bit of money and rent is getting paid which is like the main thing obviously we haven’t got a house yet we want to get one and my kid is also not that big, he’s three and a half and [my wife] she’s got conditions as well, she is patient of haemophilia where she you know what haemophilia is so she is very serious like when we had our son she, throughout she was bleeding and it was really, her condition is not very good as well. She’s got eczema she’s got asthma and a few other bits, so we have to survive like this yeah.

She’s not working as well because of her condition she, she was working before she was working in [employer] she got sacked because of her health condition because her red blood cell or white blood, I think haemoglobin, her haemoglobin and iron goes low after some time, she has to have a, you know, after a month or two they inject in her body iron or haemoglobin, they give her blood. So when that happens she can’t, she get tired very quickly so she can’t go to work and she got sacked like twice [laughs] because of that, like obviously she wasn’t able to work, so since then she is not working.

Okay, so you’re basically living on the Universal Credit?

At the moment yeah. And I get a little bit of like small jobs, to do light jobs I just take it.

Yeah, yeah like for friends and family or?

Yes my, where I was working before like if there is any small shift or night work they need, I just work.

Okay. Your, did you ever have the option of getting sick pay through your work?

No they don’t pay sick pay, these days is a zero hour’s contract and that was a zero hour contract. You just get paid when you work.

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Hazeem doesn’t have the skills to search for information himself and prefers to hear information verbally.

I’m bad in researching and reading, I’m bad, [laughs]. So yeah, if someone tells me I would listen; reading is not my thing, really no, that’s…maybe that’s why I don’t know. Sometimes there are words as well, but let’s say if there is some letter from the doctor or somebody which I don’t completely understand, I would probably…if, so there was something important, I’d probably go and Google it and translate the words I don’t understand to make sense. Like you know, but mostly there is…because ‘nose,’ for ‘nose,’ I didn’t…like I say, I was like, ‘Okay, maybe we’ll go or maybe we won’t go, it’s fine,’ so yeah, so I didn’t really search on it.

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