Andrew recovering after brush with Covid
A Wicklow artist has shared his experience of Covid-19 and described how the virus left him ‘ as weak as a kitten’.
Redcross- based Andrew Manson of Ballyrogan Expression has been recovering at home after being diagnosed with coronavirus in early May.
Andrew had been due to travel abroad for an art show but this was cancelled. Instead, Andrew continued with his work assisting the elderly. As both Andrew and his wife Attracta work in the healthcare sector, they had been carrying out their essential duties while taking precautions to avoid picking up the virus. However, the 64- year- old said in a piece he wrote about his experience with the virus that one day he found he could not catch his breath.
‘ Partial isolation became total. The test was requested, and three days later the test took place. The lungs hurt and the exercise I was allowed: walking up and down the stairs, gloved and masked got harder and harder.
‘ Black jokes about not starting a long painting became the order of the day. Of course, test results take ten days, so like Schopenhauer’s Cat; you have ‘ it’ and don’t have ‘ it’ at the same time. I can’t get to the workshop across the yard but there is a rectangle of unused but prepared plywood in the studio, just three steps from the bedroom, in the old building, just past the bathroom, which bathroom has become my own private bathroom, very strange.
‘After a week I sit by the bedroom window, painting, on a ridiculously small hospital bed table; a wet night scene in Arklow, where the buses bash into the crossing lights, it’s our nearest town, and old towns have streets too narrow, for the big buses.’
Speaking to this paper, Andrew said, ‘ I couldn’t walk up 13 steps like a half staircase without my heartbeat going up to 150 beats per minute and staying really high for two minutes. I couldn’t breathe. Because I was technically not in contact with anyone who had been abroad, it was only because I was a healthcare worker that I was sent for the first swab.’
After a positive Covid test, he was sent home to ‘ isolate for 14 days’ and endured better’.
Andrew said he had remained pragmatic during his period of illness.
‘ Other people were worse off, I never needed oxygen but I was as weak as a kitten and it was reasonably painful.’
Andrew’s artistic works focus on ‘ordinary, simple things’ in the world around him and he painted during ‘ a nasty few days getting his illness.
‘ You’re isolated, you’ve got one bedroom, one step to the bathroom. You’re not allowed out. You can’t be wandering around doing things. I had my paints in my bedroom so I did paintings on the little table.’
Andrew is also looking forward to a return to his role in the healthcare services this month.