And they…I stayed on there for a few days and then it was decided that I'd probably be better off at home because of my confusion, I'd be better off at home and obviously Becks [partner] could look after me. And I was there telling them yes, I can do this, and I can do that when I couldn’t do anything, but I was so desperate to get out of the hospital because I was…because you just become fixated on if you are in the hospital, and you are in with germs. And that's what it like when, you know, Becks goes to work in it now every day and as soon as she comes in, she puts her uniform in the wash and it's washed, but it's…it's a really strange time, it's been strange. And I did…I was better when I came home, I was better in my own home and with familiar, you know, with Katie and Becks around me, but even, do you know what, it still feels like yesterday, it really does feel like very raw, very raw.

And I think, you know, when somebody wakes up from being ventilated, I think that a family member should be there because it's pretty horrific to wake up from something like that and nobody is there that you know, yet they all know your name, but nobody is there that you know. And I had got this thing in my arm, I think it was a PICC line and I kept thinking it was a maggot, I kept thinking that was a maggot under my skin because it looked horrible. And my mouth was really, really bad, it was dry, and my tongue was so sore, and I wouldn't let anybody near me. And since then, I've developed a, I brush my teeth about seven or eight times a day, but I go through a toothbrush a week because I chew on my toothbrush and it's, for some reason it's settles me chewing on my toothbrush, I don’t know why but it's just I feel like I need something to chew on.

And my mouth has been bad ever since then, you know, my taste is not the same, my tongue is very sensitive, I don’t know whether that's, you know, because the big scabs that were on it. And I mean I spoke to Katie [daughter] and Becks [partner] on…they put a phone in front of me apparently and I kept saying that my hair was purple, and they had coloured my hair and could they come and get me and just because I didn’t know what they were going to do to me next. And it's like being tormented, that's what it felt like and I just…I don’t think I’ll ever get over the fact of being in there and being that close to death. I don’t think I’ll… and there's so many things, there's so many more things than that that I could tell you, but I'd go on and on and on, I would go on forever.

It's…and I've become obsessed with Covid, I watch programmes on intensive care units to see how other people…because I wanted to know what proning, I wanted to know what that was and what it entailed, so you know, I'm, you know, people saying you don’t need to know, but I do, I do need to know, I want to know what they did to me whilst I was asleep. Anyway, they did, they did a diary and as good as the diary is it still doesn’t answer how your brain works in respect of what goes through your mind, you know, when you're not at a conscious level and how can I remember it?  How can I remember all them things? And it's hard because I can't really speak to people about it because people are sick about hearing about Covid, it's been our lives for 18 months and people are sick of it.

And then I was transferred down to ward five which was the Covid ward and I just didn’t…I don’t think I realised, they put a nasal cannula in and I don’t think I really understood just how bad it was until it was about…and a friend of ours works for Outreach, and she came on to see how I was and then she asked one of the consultants from intensive care to come and review me. And he came to review me, and I was sort of, I'd settled a little bit, but I was settled when I wasn’t up and down to the toilet. So, they said they were going to pop a catheter in to stop me from having to go across to the loo.

And then I remember the doctor saying they were going to try the CPAP mask on me, and they said explained to me that it was like putting your head out of a car window and you would, like, because they needed to get some oxygen in. So, they put that on, and I think I tolerated it very well apparently, but then about two hours later, I remember the doctor coming in saying that they needed to put me to sleep because my saturation levels were like 43 and I was at risk of having a respiratory arrest. And I remember thinking to myself oh God, I don’t know what to do because they were asking my permission and I kept saying to them, I think I need to speak to Becks [partner] and Katie, that's my daughter. I said I think I need to speak to them, but they couldn’t, they wouldn't, they said there wasn’t enough time to speak to them, because they needed to get me round to intensive care basically.

So, in the time that they were getting the bed sorted out, they left me on this CPAP mask and then I remember going down the corridor and looking at the lights and that and it was…I was terrified, and I kept thinking what happens if I don’t wake up? And I kept saying to them, please don’t let me die, don’t let me die, please could you just, like, be here when I wake up, can you be here, and they were brilliant, they were brilliant. And the next thing is…this sounds not…because for the whole time…so they put me to sleep, when they put me to sleep, they knocked two teeth out because I was really hard to ventilate. I don’t know why that was, but whether it was because I was so poorly, I don’t know, but they ventilated me.

And when they admitted you to Intensive Care, what thoughts did you have about how sick you were? Did you have an idea of how ill you were?

Yeah. I just kept telling them to tell my family that I loved them because I didn’t know if I was going to wake up. And they were putting me to sleep but I don’t think I was fully aware that they were going to put me right out. And my friend, who works for the Outreach team, told the consultant that they’d got to tell me that they were going to put me to sleep, so they did tell me then, that they were going to put me to sleep. And it was frightening. It was terrifying. Because I may never have woken up again. But I wouldn’t have known anything, and I know that now, I wouldn’t have known anything about it.