Image of SineadMy name is Sinéad Lawn. I qualified as a nurse in October 2019 in Scotland. I am from Co. Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. I started working on a Respiratory Ward in a Scottish hospital in December 2019. Covid hit and my ward became the main covid ward. Unfortunately I had to have a tonsillectomy in March 2020, then had a haemorrhage a week after and had to go back into hospital for emergency surgery.

 

I went back to Northern Ireland while I was off sick due to the haemorrhage and infection from my tonsillectomy – my roommates were also nurses in contact and working with covid patients and were coming back to our flat where I was trying to recover. My mother came and collected me from Edinburgh and we got the boat back to Northern Ireland. A week later she developed covid symptoms; a week after that I also developed them. Testing was not being done for the public at the stage so I rang the doctor to tell them about my symptoms and they said it was covid and to isolate for 14 days. I updated my ward back in Edinburgh about this.

 

I was extremely unwell – coughing, fever, headaches, chills, muscle weakness, lung pain, etc. and had to stay at home until May to recover. I started doing small walks to get my stamina back. All the while I was getting phone calls from my ward saying we were short staffed due to staff members being off with covid, dealing with severe covid patients and I was needed back on the ward ASAP. Because of this I ended up going back to work sooner than I felt I should have. I felt horrendous about being off when my colleagues were struggling, calling me every day to find out when I’d be able to come back.

 

I went back to the ward in June 2020 and was doing the regular 12 hour shifts on the covid ward – I relapsed and was experiencing stomach pains, migraines, muscle weakness, brain fog and fatigue and had to take off another three weeks off sick. I then went back to work on a phased return for a week in July 2020 straight into the covid ward where multiple patients were dying each day and I was only newly qualified. We had patients in quarantined rooms trying to leave the ward to go for cigarettes. When we called security, they wouldn’t come onto the ward because it was a covid ward. The guards just stood outside and watched multiple clinical support workers and nurses attempt to get the patient back into their room as they were supposed to leave and they were putting staff members at risk. Due to this and other horrendous experiences I’ve had to go for therapy to try and recover.

 

The ward was split into two sections when the number of covid cases decreased a bit; the covid side and the respiratory side. Each nurse was supposed to take their turn working on the covid side and the respiratory side equally. However, some staff members had elderly parents to look after and bring food to as lockdown was in force. So I was in the covid side for two straight months as I didn’t have any family to look after, no children and I was over in Scotland by myself. Everyone in the ward was doing the best they could. So many people died each day and we were working so hard to save them but still so many died. One example is:

 

A wife and husband came in to the ward – both with covid. We were able to get them to sit together to have a meal one evening, that night the husband took off his oxygen mask and was found dead at the end of his bed. We had to tell the wife and she died a few days later leaving their daughter an orphan in just a few days. They were in their 60s.

 

I rang my mum each day and she used to know how many people died by the tone of my voice.

 

I was on the covid ward for a full year. I didn’t get to see my family for over seven months, including Christmas. After a year of working in the covid ward, I decided to move home to Northern Ireland in April 2021. I had been getting every illness that was going around since going back to work in July – every cold, cough, stomach bug and was more fatigued than usual. I began work on a urology ward in Northern Ireland in June 2021. After a month covid cases increased and the ward was changed from surgical to general medicine. We were short staffed, had patients who were waiting on nursing home placements and needed two members of staff to turn them so that they could be washed, dressed and fed. Some days we had no clinical support staff to help, wandering patients, violent patients etc. It was extremely difficult. Covid broke out in the ward in December.

 

I went home on Christmas Eve, had Christmas Day at home and went back to work on Boxing Day. My brother tested positive on 28th December. I had to tell my ward and got tested myself – I was negative but started to have a bad cough/chest infection, extremely sore lungs that I wasn’t able to take a deep breath, chills, extreme fatigue, a temperature, dizziness when I tried to stand up, my parents had to help me to the bathroom, I could not sit up at the table to eat, had debilitating headaches and was bedbound from the 29th December over New Year. I couldn’t move or eat. I was in bed for a full month with all of these symptoms and I’ve had these symptoms since then. I am still unsure where I contacted covid from.

 

I spoke to the doctors in February 2022, ended up in A&E having multiple tests done and my bloods came back clear, they told me I had Long Covid. I was in A&E another time with a chest infection and was again told I had Long Covid and was given an inhaler. For the whole of 2022 I couldn’t get out of bed without help, wasn’t able to stand up for more than 5-10 mins, debilitating fatigue, sore lungs, headaches, light sensitivity, unable to manage my temperature – I would get randomly hot and then cold, dizziness, extreme brain fog where I couldn’t remember words or the names of my family, amongst other symptoms.

 

I was diagnosed with Long Covid and asthma by a respiratory consultant in January 2023 having received no help from my GP. I was put on antidepressants as I wasn’t coping with the loss of independence, the flashbacks from the covid ward and everything I experienced there. I still have flashbacks but was able to go to a private Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing therapist to help with them. I am still struggling with my sleep, diet (nausea and no hunger pangs), showering, I cannot make my own dinner or drive for longer than 5 minutes due to fatigue and brain fog. I have mobility aids to help me with showering and brushing my teeth. I have had to use a wheelchair to get to my appointments for physiotherapy which they said I was too fatigued to do, and counselling.

 

My life has changed drastically since 2021 when I contracted covid and I am now being put forward for ill health retirement at the age of 29 due to not being able to work in the NHS as a nurse. I’ve been on the waiting list for pulmonary rehab since my diagnosis, but they were not able to see me due to my levels of fatigue and dizziness. I am going to oxygen therapy in Omagh, Co. Tyrone to help my lungs and fatigue which hasn’t worked really and I’ve had over 10 sessions. After every outing, I have to get back to bed and lie down for a two to three hour nap as I am extremely fatigued and nauseous, have a high heart rate, etc. If I have a coffee with a friend I will be bedbound for a few days afterwards.

 

My mother has had to drop down to four days a week in her job as a teacher to try and support me. Long Covid has affected my family as well as myself and there is no help from the GPs. I really hope Supporting Healthcare Heroes UK are able to help me, and others like myself, as our entire lives have changed and we are no longer the people we were in 2019, and neither are our families.

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