‘It took coronavirus lockdown for me to realise how ill I was’

Chief reporter Martin Shipton on his health battle in lockdown and why the care of NHS staff in exceptional circumstances brought him to tears

WHEN lockdown began, I had no idea that before long my health would appear to be in such a poor state that my wife would call an ambulance because of her fear that I might die.

In the weekend before everything shut down, I went on a trip to Edinburgh to see some friends, and we took in the Scotland-France rugby match at Murrayfield.

I was fine at the time, but within days of returning to Cardiff was feeling quite unwell. I’m asthmatic and prone to chest infections, but this was worse: I was seriously listless, wasn’t comfortable lying down and had to sleep in a chair.

Antibiotics didn’t seem to be making any impact, and while I was able to carry on writing my articles at home without any apparent intellectual impairment, physically I was unwell and not improving.

I was writing at a desk in the bedroom and got to the point where I was finding it an effort to walk a few yards along the landing to the bathroom.

Stupidly, I didn’t seek any further medical help, tried to ignore my condition and just cracked on with my writing and reading.

Eventually, after being cajoled by my wife, close friends and, perhaps rather unexpectedly, by the politician Lord Peter Hain to whom I’d mentioned that I wasn’t feeling great – “Don’t delay!”, he urged me – I allowed her to call the NHS.

I hadn’t realised she’d rung 999 and called an ambulance. Later she told me she’d been worried that I’d die in the house, which rather freaked me out.

Another thing that freaked me out was when the paramedic who arrived on the back of the 999 call offered the opinion in the presence of my wife that in the current climate, with Covid-19 rampant, people who went into hospital often didn’t come out again.

Two other more reassuring paramedics quickly arrived to check me over and take me to Llandough Hospital where I was to spend the next 13 days in what I discovered to be extremely capable hands.

Before arrival, I was put on the Covid-19 suspect list and taken to an isolated room off reception where I underwent several tests, the most unpleasant of which was like having an ice lolly stick shoved down my throat.

That was the Covid-19 test, whose result would not be available for 48 hours. Being in limbo, I was moved to an assessment ward where I would stay until the result was known.

I’d not been a hospital inpatient since I was five years old, although like many I’d spent time over the years visiting family and friends.

As I soon discovered, your perspective as an inpatient is very different.

As soon as you enter hospital, you become part of a distinct community with the doctors, nurses and carers whose role it is to look after you and, hopefully, help you recover.

This sense of a separate community is all the more intense during the current lockdown, where visitors are not permitted.

Of course it is possible to maintain contact with the outside world via your mobile phone, even to the extent of having video calls, but you’re still at one remove.

Arriving at hospital in the middle of a pandemic inevitably makes you feel vulnerable.

Was the indiscreet paramedic correct, and was my ability to survive really on the line?

I was reassured by the steps taken from the moment I entered the hospital to make me feel that I would not be exposed to the coronavirus.

There was clearly a well worked-out procedure to keep me safe at that early stage: as soon as I was wheeled through the entrance I was whisked into a room cut off from the main part of the hospital.

Nevertheless, the vulnerability returned after I was tested and sent off to a ward where patients stayed while their Covid-19 test result was awaited.

Would I come into contact with a patient who could potentially infect me, assuming I wasn’t already infected?

Again, I was reassured when I was put into a side-room on the ward which contained two beds, but mine was the only one occupied.

The community I was now a part of consisted mainly of nurses in blue and carers in green, with occasional visits from doctors, all of them wearing protective clothing.

Almost immediately I found myself establishing a rapport on an individual basis with those who were caring for me.

Each, without exception, had their own way of making human contact and expressing kindness towards me and doubtless the other patients.

They had a knack of picking up on my interests and starting conversations, albeit necessarily brief.

This helped to make more bearable the occasions when I would be woken in the middle of the night for the measurement of blood pressure, yet another blood test or the dispensing of a tablet that couldn’t wait until the morning.

Without the friendliness I encountered, it’s fair to say the hospital environment – without concessions to decoration or any kind of aesthetic sense – could have seemed rather spartan.

The staff were an eclectic and international group, and there was a high proportion of Welsh and British BAME workers too.

I have always hated racism, but found myself getting more emotional about the attacks by right-wing politicians on foreigners for supposedly exploiting the NHS.

I was at the coalface of the NHS and there was no avoiding the high incidence of foreign and BAME staff.

Somehow my indignation coincided with my vulnerability, and there were occasions when I was driven to tears – something that in a political context I had never experienced before.

What made the relatability of the staff even more admirable was my discovery, through conversations with them, that a high proportion had themselves recently returned to work after a spell of Covid-19 sickness themselves. Others were still recovering.

When my test result came back it was negative: I hadn’t contracted Covid-19. I was also told more about my condition. I’d had a severe lung infection, with fluid on the lung, linked to atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat.

I was put on a blood-thinning prescription drug and a water tablet to deal with the fluid.

Given the link between fluid on the lung and Covid-19, I quickly realised I was very fortunate not to have been Covid-19 positive.

I was moved onto a new ward where I was monitored for more than a week to ensure the fluid was diminishing and my blood pressure was stabilised.

Then it would be down to the prescription drugs that I would continue to take after my discharge.

I’m very aware that my ordeal was minor in the context of what has been happening. I had the good fortune not to contract Covid-19, didn’t need to be put on a ventilator and I survived.

But I came close enough to the deadly virus to realise in a more personal way than previously what an horrific impact it has had on our society.

Like all the health workers I discussed the issue with, I’m convinced the situation could have been handled so much better.

Another lesson I’ve learned is to be more aware of my own mortality.

While obviously I’ve known since my childhood that I would die some day, the thought has never been in the forefront of my mind.

After my recent experience, the knowledge has moved a little further forward.