Helen is certain she caught Covid in March 2020 (before the 1st lockdown), although there was no testing available at the time to confirm this. She says her symptoms started with a strange sensation “like there was a burning in my windpipe.” She attended a work event the next day and her symptoms persisted, although she wondered at the time if it was just indigestion.

When Helen returned from the event, she describes feeling “absolutely exhausted” but initially put this down to having been away with work. When her symptoms deteriorated further and she started coughing, experiencing an upset stomach and persistently high temperature, she thought “Okay, actually have I got Covid?”

Helen describes the following weeks as like being in “this weird limbo” where her symptoms persisted. She says that although her husband, sister and son all had similar symptoms around the same time, they all got better.

Helen tried to carry on with her daily activities and caring for her son but found this more and more challenging when the 1st lockdown happened and once again her symptoms deteriorated, and she also developed nerve problems. She says “…our whole lives were just upended really” and describes the whole period as a “very anxiety-inducing time.”

She initially took 4 weeks off work, but after returning she realised she would have to take a much longer period off due to her Long Covid symptoms. Around this time people started talking about what is now known as Long Covid and Helen describes this as being “like a light in the dark…this is something that happens to people, this is not just about me.”

Helen undertook various investigative tests to rule things out and says over time her symptoms fell into a “relaxing/remitting type thing,” where she would have some better days, but then experience flare ups.

She says she had to get a lot of help and support from her family at the time as she was struggling to cope. She describes having had some cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which encouraged her to stop looking at online forums about Long Covid and helped her to develop some practical strategies to support her home life.

More recently Helen’s been starting to feel much better and has been able to return to work part-time. Although she says she doesn’t feel completely better yet (and still has bad days), she says her family have adapted and adjusted to the situation.