So here we are. Our lives have been completed disrupted by Coronavirus. We are experiencing unprecedented times and having to adjust to a new way of living where we work from home (if we can), we can’t physically see or hug our family when we want to and, if we can go outside, we must try to avoid people, and if we encounter them we swiftly move into an appropriate ‘social distance’. On top of this, we have no way of knowing how long this will continue.
Our need for information can overwhelm our minds in a constant and ever-changing dialogue about pandemic, disaster, isolation and risk. We respond in various ways, from denial, to panic, anxiety and helplessness with these feelings changing throughout the day.
I’ll be honest, this isn’t easy for me. I lost my mum, sister, dad, aunt and granddad to pneumonia. My mum was 50 and healthy, my sister was 49 and had MS. My husband has a pre-existing health condition – so to put it frankly Covid-19 scares the …. out of me and I recognise the feelings of anxiety and panic.
However, I wind back. This time 2 years ago, I was just about to find out that the symptoms I had been experiencing for months were due to spinal cord damage – basically I had a huge calcified prolapse disc sticking in my spinal cord, which would eventually, if not treated, leave me paralysed from the waist down. However, the surgery I had to urgently undergo was risky, carried a 2% chance of paralysis and only a 30% chance of improvement. It also carried a risk of pneumonia as they had to deflate one lung. The bottom dropped out of my world. All my plans and dreams were put on hold. I was so scared!
Travelling and life 