My slow road to recovery: Far North woman speaks about her ongoing struggle after being hit by Covid-19
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Helen McCarthy is on a slow road to recovery from coronavirus. She struggles badly with fatigue and constant pain in her limbs, while the illness has also taken its toll on her brain, making her muddled and forgetful at times. But there is nothing muddled about her reply when she is asked about the worst part of the whole experience. She says: “The worst part of it was the fear of dying.”
The 59-year-old NHS worker was rushed by ambulance from her home in Watten to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness after being struck by the virus in early April. She went on to spend eight days on life support and suffered from delirium. It was, she says, "just horrendous". She is keen to share her story to help raise awareness of the continuing threat posed by Covid-19. "It’s still there," she warns.
Helen and her husband Alan (60) were unwell for a week before calling for help. "We dialled 111 and they told me that I would have to go to hospital," she recalls. "I argued the toss and they said to phone back in two days, which I did. As I was speaking to them, the nurse or doctor that I was speaking to said there’s an ambulance on its way.
"I was taken into Caithness General where they X-rayed me and what not, and the doctor there said because of my age, and because of how bad I had it, I would have to go to Raigmore. I was only two hours in Caithness General. We went by fast ambulance to Raigmore, blue flashing lights and sirens all the way."
Alan remained at home. Although he was never tested for the virus, he is convinced that he had it.
Helen's underlying health conditions made her especially vulnerable.
"I’m asthmatic anyway and I had just been diagnosed with diabetes," she says. "I took it a lot worse than Alan. It was just a persistent cough, but it was a different kind of cough than we’d ever had before. We couldn’t explain it.
“I was five days in Raigmore when the doctor came to me and told me that he was going to put me to sleep. I asked him if I was going to die, and he said, ‘No, not if I can help it.’
"I phoned Alan and I phoned my sister Elizabeth, and told them what was going to happen. Alan was struggling with his health at home, and then I was put to sleep.
"I was eight days on life support and after that I suffered delirium. The delirium was something else – it’s still in my mind yet. I came out of the hospital bed with the sides up and they found me on the floor.
"It was just horrendous, it really was.
"Alan couldn’t phone for a report on me because he had taken laryngitis on top of it."
News of Helen's condition had to be relayed through the couple's daughter Alanna (29). Helen explains: “Alan had to message our daughter in Inverurie because he couldn’t speak either, and she would phone the hospital and then they would take the iPad to my bed and show her me and give her an update of what I was like. She would message back to her dad then."
I’m very forgetful now. I forget my words and I get in a muddle. And there’s the fatigue, the soreness and weakness in my limbs.
Helen was in Raigmore for 20 days but has little recollection of her time there. “I can just remember the couple of days before I got home from the hospital," she says. "I got some physiotherapy and they were doing more blood tests."
It is clear that the virus has had a long-term impact on her health.
“It damaged my brain, which will repair itself. It damaged my throat, which is repairing itself too. I usually have quite a strong voice but if I speak too much I squeak and I lose my voice," Helen says.
“I’m very forgetful now. I forget my words and I get in a muddle. I can’t even read a newspaper – I haven’t got it in me to take in what I’m seeing.
“And there’s the fatigue, the soreness and weakness in my limbs. I lost two stones in 20 days and that was all muscle mass, so I’m very weak now with having lost my muscles.
“Alan even has to dress me because my limbs are so sore. We’re lucky in the fact that he is working from home. He has had to fit a new handrail and everything."
Helen is a senior health and social care worker but is still unfit to work and has just been signed off for a further spell. She is supported by the specialists in Inverness through phone calls and the NHS Near Me video consulting service.
She is full of praise for the level of care she has received. "They are second to none," she says. “I really can’t fault them.
"At the moment I think I’m dealing with five specialists, and the doctor up here. They’ve all told me that I’ll be six months to a year and they don’t know what the outcome will be."
Initially the couple depended on their son Richard (34), who lives in Wick, for shopping and other essentials. “For the first while our son had to do it for us but now I can get out once a week, sometimes twice a week," Helen explains. "I can manage my shopping, with Alan. I have to rely on Alan for quite a lot.
“We go into the town but while we were ill, before I went to the hospital, the local shop delivered to us – they were tremendous.
“If I need anything at all, my son or my sister will get it for me.”
Helen and Alan don't know how they came into contact with the virus, but suspect it must have been while out doing their shopping.
“We keep ourselves to ourselves, we’re a very private couple," Helen says. "We don’t go out socialising or anything.”
Alan, a maintenance officer for Highland Council, was off work for seven weeks.
"We both came down with it on the same day, the Sunday night of the first weekend in April," he says. “I knew there was something wrong. For me it was like man flu but Helen was worse.
“I managed to work at home on the first day-and-a-half but then at lunchtime on the Tuesday I phoned my boss and said I can’t speak properly and I’m going downhill.
"I can’t remember much about the next couple of days and then on the Friday Helen was taken into the hospital, so I was left at home with the dogs and cats.
"On the Saturday I had a whooping cough and a pain in my chest and my sinuses and a terrible pain behind one eye. It still comes back occasionally."
He was diagnosed with a chest and sinus infection and given a prescription for antibiotics. He was later given a diagnosis of laryngitis but, he says, "didn’t tick any of the boxes" for Covid-19 symptoms at that time.
"The consultant in Raigmore said to Helen that they thought I would have had it as well," Alan says. "I had that whooping cough and it was like nothing I’ve ever had before. I think the laryngitis was an added extra, as it were. I was quite convinced – as far as I’m concerned, I’ve had it."
With it being an unknown illness, I don’t know if I’m going to get it a second time.
Alan remembers the shock he felt at receiving an early-morning call from Raigmore.
“When your wife phones you at six o’clock to tell you she’s being put to sleep for a while, it’s a wee bit worrying, shall we say – especially when the phone call wakes you up at that time in the morning.
“She pulled through, which is the main thing, but it was a worrying time.”
Helen has used social media to talk about her ordeal and has given interviews in the hope that people will remain vigilant in the face of the pandemic.
“It’s not just what they think is a flu. I’ve had the flu, and it’s nothing like it," Helen says.
“With it being an unknown illness, I don’t know if I’m going to get it a second time. So I’m very wary of people coming up close to me, and if I am out I’m watching what people are doing and I can see what they are doing wrong.
“It’s important that I do speak up because so many people don’t. Why are they embarrassed to say that they’ve got it?
“I know quite a few people in Caithness that have had it, and have even lost their life to it. So people just need to know.”
