Jab was a weight off my shoulders
STUDENT Lucy Baxter was excited to spend time with her friends again after a year of shielding with her parents.
The 23-year-old has cystic fibrosis so she and her parents have been isolating at home on and off since last March.
Miss Baxter, who is doing a masters in broadcast journalism at Salford University, spent her first day of freedom yesterday visiting a friend.
She said: ‘I went to sit in my friend’s garden – that was exciting. I feel better because I’ve had my first vaccination and I’m having my next one next Wednesday so I feel a bit less nervous about meeting up outside with people.
‘The pivotal moment was when I had my vaccine. I immediately felt a pressure off my shoulders.’
Miss Baxter, who lives in New Longton, Lancashire, said shielding during the first lockdown was ‘very, very strict’.
‘It was just me, my mum and my dad and they both went straight to working from home,’ she said. ‘It was very tricky from March to June because we weren’t even allowed out for a walk.
‘We have a field opposite the house that we own and I would walk in there so I was very fortunate to have a lot of space but it was still hard.’
She said the toughest part was not seeing her boyfriend properly for so long. For the first 25 weeks of the first lockdown, she only saw him when he would ‘come to the house outside and I’d stay up in my bedroom window and it was a bit like Romeo and Juliet!’
She also found lockdown difficult because she’s an only child so has been ‘with the same people for a year’.
Despite the isolation, Miss Baxter has been busy getting a first in her undergraduate degree and training to become a Zumba instructor.