‘I stayed locked in my room to protect my family and others’
Lindsay Dyble
I contracted coronavirus in March, most likely at the care home where I work. For the first three days I could hardly get out of bed. Then slowly I began to feel better. But around day nine, I had the most terrifying dip.
My oxygen levels plummeted, my throat felt restricted and I was left struggling to breathe.
Anxious above all to avoid spreading the virus to my husband and two teenage sons, I remained resolutely locked in my room.
When I was fighting for breath, my husband’s first instinct was naturally to break down the door to make sure I was OK. I refused flat out to let him in.
I was going to battle this thing on my own, no matter what it took or how hard it was for him not to see me.
I was so scared I wanted to cry, but I knew this would have made it even harder to breathe. I’m 53 years old and all I wanted was for my husband to be sitting beside me.
But I knew he absolutely must not be. My GP, who I phoned for advice, said he’d give it six hours for my breathing to improve before sending an ambulance to my home on the Suffolk-essex border. I pictured myself being stretchered out and admitted to hospital, alone.
Luckily it didn’t reach this point and gradually I started to improve.
Not once did I consider breaking my quarantine and putting any others in danger. We all stayed indoors for 14 days, with a neighbour leaving food on our driveway. We know what it’s like to have childcare needs but no way would I have acted differently even if my children were younger. Working on the front line, I know just how much is at stake.
My colleagues have harrowing stories about losing parents to Covid-19 and being unable to say goodbye. That Dominic Cummings has been allowed to act differently from everyone else in the country has made me incandescent with rage.
To then have our Prime Minister defending this man’s actions and treating us all like idiots was even harder a blow.
Although I’m still not feeling completely better, I’m back out there working for the NHS.
We are working flat out, exhausted, and dealing with very ill people who have had to sacrifice checkups and treatment while the fight against Covid came first. We want to do everything we can, but to be treated like this by Boris Johnson is demeaning, demoralising and shameful.
I’ve lost any trust in the Government.