The Trembling Kind

I don't know what else to do, so I will just write. 

I sit beside Tess, who is painting a kitchen roll tube as part of 'lockdown' home-school work. She is coughing regularly, in big exasperated barks. 

To recap, she has asthma, and has currently been coughing (big style) for 75 days in a row. In the middle of a nightmarish, coughing Pandemic- just to be cheeky.  Just to help her mother's nerves. But yes, it is not Covid19; it is Cough-Variant Asthma, I remind myself 20 times a day. 

Yesterday, on GP advice, we started the new inhaler - Symbicort. As I lay in bed with her, trying to help her to sleep through the now-nightly coughing fits, I noticed she was trembling. I went to re-read the leaflet for Symbicort and yep, number 1 side effect - trembling or shaking. Fab! I hope it settles.

Earlier in this Pandemic Crisis, I was constantly checking the news feed of the outside world. For the past few days, I've been consumed with the inside world. I've tried not to scroll the phone.

Here's the toilet roll tube, now re-purposed as a cherry blossom tree. The trembling kind.

It must be Sunday

This is me since yesterday, said Billy Connolly once.  

Hour by hour, I still feel like a rabbit in the headlights. 

The anti- biotics aren't helping Tess at all. They were a gamble, one option, in the absence of other possible treatments. 

I have a dear friend who is a GP, (and a superhero, even when she had a 1980's perm). I called her for advice last night when poor Tess was doubled over coughing. Yet again. 

If the anti-biotics are too painful on her stomach, my doc pal said we can cease trying them. They just didn't seem to be helping one millimetre.  

I like it when doctors consult. Ask the patient's opinion. Advise and support without dictating. My friend is an expert at that. 

Plan B is to try a new, stronger asthma inhaler. The prescription won't reach Boots until Monday and there are rumours of 5 day delays for regular meds. But I plan to run the gauntlet tomorrow and try and hunt it down. Maybe take it to a smaller, local chemist. 

These are long, slow days, when I'm acutely aware that there must be so, so many people who are suffering. It's as if it's hanging in the air. 

The Spring sunshine and the wood pigeon's song (3 notes on a wee wooden flute) carry on like they have enough to do, without humanity's troubles to hold them back.  

I love my family. I'm telling them more often. 

The 70 Days (and counting) Cough

My 10 year old girl has been coughing for 70 days.

It's hard to be stoic about it. Mums worry. My heart sinks often. On impulse, I picked up the phone to the GP surgery to enquire about our situation. They said to bring Tess in for a check up.

Instead of going to the waiting room, I was to phone from the car. They ushered us in through the automatic doors, to a room newly labelled, the Respiratory Room. God. 

The GP, who normally wears lovely Boden-style dresses, was in blue scrubs, surgical gloves, a plastic apron, goggles and a flimsy paper mask. My heart went out to her. 

Tess sat on a slice of tissue paper, placed on a seat. I stood, trying to touch absolutely nothing.

GP agreed that Tess' cough had been going on too long. She sounded Tess's chest (cautiously, on her slender back) and said that while the chest sounded clear, we really needed to try something.

We have anti-biotics in the fridge at home, previously prescribed and body-swerved when Tess had improved without them (only to relapse later). You can try them, now, said the doctor. They might help or they might do 'absolutely nothing'.

Next stage would be to upgrade her asthma meds to a combination inhaler. She warned me to phone Boots the Chemist before going. 

Ideally, I'd like a Hazmat suit before going, but damn it, wouldn't the entire NHS? Don't get me started on my level of rage about that failure of Government. 

It's such a stressful time, I said to the lovely GP and thanked her.

People are dropping like flies, she said.  Staff, patients or both, I wondered. I didn't ask. 

On the way out of the Respiratory Room, I found myself suddenly saying, 'love and thanks to all of you here.' My voice cracked and I had to swallow back the tears. 

I drove home and told my girl to, 'have a relaxing shower' (euphemism for the Chernobyl scene I was running in my head). I did the same and threw our clothes straight in the washing machine.

My mum's cancer treatment is now on hold. The young girl next door is due a baby today. I saw her talking to her elderly mum through a window. Covid-19 is affecting everyone, directly or indirectly. 

I'll need to watch some escapist fluff TV tonight. This is hard, people. Let's keep talking. 

Scared Now

 Last night I watched Channel 4 news (discreetly on my phone, so the kids couldn't see). An ICU specialist calmly and professionally described a 'tsunami' of critical cases about to hit UK hospitals and said help was needed on 'an industrial scale.'

He said London could run out of intensive care hospital beds by the weekend. Anxiety rattled through me, in a way it hasn't done for years. 

Every day on twitter, I tweet the UK government to add to the pressure to do MORE on testing. It's a national scandal that frontline NHS staff are still not getting enough protective equipment. The UK knew about this threat since January.

I'm not a scientist, but even I could see that Wuhan and Italy could come here. 

As some of you know, our girl, Tess has had an asthma-related, persistent cough since January. In February, she tested negative for COVID-19 (in the very early days, when you could still get a test!) She was off school for about 4 weeks out of 6. 

We've followed GP's advice and upped her asthma meds. She  improved, then relapsed several times. We have been mostly in isolation for, what, 10 days? Now every time her cough worsens into coughing fits, (as it did last night), my stomach is in knots.

I don't want to have to take her anywhere near a hospital right now. The infection risk is too high. She slept okay, eventually, but I hear her cough and cough, as I type this. Sigh. 

This is nerve-jangling and no fun whatsoever.  But you know that too. 

Day 1, Lockdown

It's all moving at breakneck speed now. I knew it had to. I wanted it to, but it's still a shock. 

It seems like a different world, when we casually drove to Loch Lomond 3 days ago. We kept more than 2 meters from the few others who were milling about, but I now feel a bit sheepish about going there.

It's difficult to find a spare hour to draft a blog post, as I need to be available to the kids. I am already scrolling my phone too often. 

The most calming place to sit is in my garden, beside my solar-powered fountain. Trickle, trickle, trickle and the birds tweep, tweep, tweep. 

I can chat to two goldfish and a bunch of frogspawn while I  reflect on both the folly and the beauty of humanity, while also wondering what cupboard supplies I can throw together for  a make-do dinner. 

Family harmony is okay for now. Nobody wants to throttle anybody. So far! I know we are lucky. I am in awe of the NHS staff and their brave dedication. Utter heroes.

Day 1: Social Distancing, Loch Lomond

Day 1 of the New Reality. 

It all feels so weird and strange. I keep reminding myself: this is only the beginning. I savour luxuries that must never be taken for granted: a hot shower, chai tea, enough food.

We are 'social distancing'. The kids can't see friends or do all their normal Saturday things (football, drama class). It's hard for them to take in the scale of this.

We drive to Loch Lomond. It feels eerily calm. I know 'eerily calm' is a cliche, but hell, I'm deploying it today. The light is slightly tinged, like water from a vase of flowers.  

I feel guilty about the petrol we used to drive here. Before Covid 19, I was becoming ever more Greta Thunberg. I was genuinely, deeply conflicted about booking flights abroad, even just for an annual family holiday. Now I feel the pandemic is some sort of planetary karma. Environmentalists have only been warning us this could happen for decades.

If we don't wake up to the double crisis now - a pandemic AND a climate emergency, then our world is in more trouble than most of us can imagine. But anyway, one crisis at a time, I hear you shout. Yes. One day at a time. When this is finally done, we better start treating the Climate Emergency with the same respect. 

I'll try to keep the blog posts short and regular. I can't concentrate enough to summon up any poetry. I'm sure the great Carol Ann Duffy could knock it out of the park at a time like this. I miss Seamus Heaney's take. I saw a tweet of his previous words that are so relevant now -

Seamus Heaney

@HeaneyDaily

Tell the truth: a hard lot. And no shirking this fate; no sleep, no respite, no hope for a long time.

12:37 AM · Mar 12, 2020·Twitter for iPad

We are all Anne Frank in the attic. My poor parents with their 'underlying health conditions' are stuck in their flat for up to a year, but they will do what it takes. What choice does anyone have?

I'm 'on call' for the kids all day, now schools have shut. But I feel a strong urge to document this strange and scary time.  I'm here, if you are too. Let's clutch hands, digitally.

Lost for words

The apocalypse starts gently, with the pinging of multiple WhatsApp messages. My phone persists, like a baby bird in a nest. 

I can't keep up. I scroll through batches of messages in between doing the dishes and the regular chat/interruptions from the kids

'Mum, can I chose what you wear on my birthday? You need a fashion advisor. Will shops be open on my birthday?'

Other mums are messaging about the crisis. Is it actually a lockdown? How will it work? Can the boys still play football at the pitch? 

Our 11 year old son, Hugh, is just back from a residential school trip to the Highlands. Canoeing, abseiling, zip wires. I was amazed the trip was allowed to go ahead. I was delighted he had such a good time, and grateful to the teachers. They all got there and back before the Covid-19 door closed today. 

What a world to come back to. I know the kids have no idea of the scale of this crisis. Perhaps a lot of adults don't either.

But horribly, it will become clear in the weeks ahead. I can stop reeling from what is happening, day by day, hour by hour. For weeks, I would tell friends I was worried about the Corona Virus. Some said things like -It will blow over. Don't be daft. It's over hyped, isn't it?

I am raging at Boris Johnson's mishandling of the situation. The government lost critical days, rampaging down the wrong track, putting business before public health with the infamous 'herd immunity' experiment.., until scientists pointed out that this would mean a quarter of a million deaths. Chief medical officer, Chris Whitty is now aiming for fewer than twenty thousand. Deaths! I can't even believe I am typing this. It's horrifying. 

Since January, daughter Tess, 9, has been off school for weeks, due to asthma issues and a persistent, debilitating cough. There was no way I was going to send her in to school this week. 

Together we took a social-distancing walk to the pond to feed a few darting ducks. I envied them their floating oblivion under the much-needed March sun. 

I must get to bed. I love going to bed. My brain needs a rest. 

Surreal Times - The Threat of Coronavirus

Do you remember that scene in the movie, JAWS? 

The policeman and the marine biologist beg the mayor to close the beach, and the mayor refuses to close the beach because it will harm the tourist trade?

That's how I feel about Corona Virus. Governments should be doing all they can to implement Social Distancing now. I think we need to shut down non-essential travel. They will have to anyway (IMHO), but by then, thousands more lives will be at risk.

People who say,  I'll take my chances, don't realise they are  increasing risk for others. The virus has an incubation period of up-to two weeks. Just think of all that time to shed virus particles... (flu incubates in 2 to 4 days, by comparison).

I'm finding it hard to know what to do. I've had to cancel work due to my girl being off school with a debilitating cough, lasting weeks. 

 I'm glad I'm not in paid employment because I need to be here to look after the kids (unpaid, underated work, of course), when the government finally has to shut schools.

The news from Italy is just so horribly worrying. Doctors write on twitter of hospital intensive care units being overwhelmed. Approximately 10% of cases need intensive care. 

I hate being a so-called scare-monger. But I do think people need to press for swifter action. 

I find it hard to keep all this from the kids. I make sure they can't hear the news on TV or radio. They are being told to wash their hands 5 or 6 times a day at school. Some of the kids have eczema flares on their hands. Hard.

I'm ready to do our best to try and limit community spread. I'm mentally kissing our foreign holiday goodbye. I'm convinced we are in this fight for the long haul. 

If only the planet could have enough co-operation to deal with the Corona Virus threat - let's face it, pandemic - AND the global climate crisis at the same time. Fly less, start to learn safer, more  sustainable ways of living. Our kids would thank us. And then some.