My Mum Has Covid

Trying to get out my words has been hard. I don’t think the dictionary has the words that I can describe my feelings with because this is all too surreal. Possibly broken, devastated, worried, anxious but they don’t seem big enough for the enormity of my emotions.

In the first week of the new year, my Mum started feeling really poorly. She was being sick and absolutely exhausted. She did everything to try and stay at home, and spent over a week barely eating/drinking and sleeping throughout the day and night. 

During that time, she went for a COVID test to be sure. It came back as COVID POSITIVE!

This came as such a shock to me. My Mum, someone who has been cooped up indoors for months to keep herself safe. She’s a vulnerable person after having a kidney transplant a few years ago. She is immune suppressed.

On Saturday, 16th January, her oxygen levels dropped to a dangerous low level and my Step-Dad and my Mum made the decision to call the NHS for help. Of course the paramedics insisted there was no other option but to admit her to hospital.

It’s now been just over five days since she was taken to hospital in an ambulance.

Before my Mum went into hospital, I didn’t think it would get bad. It never truly occurred to me that she might need to go to hospital. Stupidly I assumed a bit of rest would sort her out and we’d be back to normal with a week or so.

But the days went by and our contact with each other grew less and less as she stopped being as awake. This has been the hardest adjustment for me. Going from FaceTiming for hours every single day, to one text a day to now nothing.

When she was admitted to hospital, at first, just like I always do and shouldn’t, I thought the worst of everything. I started imagining a world without her and how we would tell the girls. How I would manage to juggle daily life without being able to confide in my Mum. Never being able to see her smile or hear her laugh.

But then I was reminded of how strong she is. How much she’s been through in this life and how much there is left to do and see. That I know she would not back down on this fight because her love for those around her is far too great to just give up so easily.

I feel like I’m grieving already. My life has changed drastically over the past two weeks. Not being able to pick up the phone and tell her how difficult it is remote teaching the girls, how Eva has been an emotional wreck and demanding a dog again, seeing all the sewing creations she is making, whinging about coronavirus and the lockdown.

I am praying hard that this is temporary, that God will heal my Mum and give her the strength to fight this disgusting virus. I pray that my Mum knows that there is no other option but to get better and come home.

If I’m honest to myself and to you reading this, my Mum is not doing well. It’s a terribly scary time for our family but I want to say thank you to everybody who has text me, messaged, commented and phoned me to give love, prayers and just to let me know I am not alone. It’s getting me through the darkest of days.