‘My terrifying battle against long COVID’

21-year old stuck at home for more than two months

A 21-year-old Perth carer has spoken out about her daily battle with ‘long COVID’ which has kept her restricted to her own home for more than two months.

Catherineanne Butler has also warned of the “terrifying” effects the disease can still have on the younger generation.

The myCare Tayside worker tested positive on October 26 after going for a walk outside with a friend who had, unbeknownst to her, contracted the virus already.

Ever since she has been shielding with her partner, and at one point did not leave her home for 20 days.

Catherineanne’s fragile condition has become so severe at times her partner has had to help her with basic tasks - such as walking her to the bathroom and dressing her - and for days-onend she has been left bedridden and in pain. Talking to the PA about her harrowing experience, Catherineanne said: “I had gone out for a walk with a friend of mine.

“A couple of days later she told me she tested positive which automatically meant I had to self-isolate.

“Then it was eight days later I called up the doctor asking when I could go back to work.

“The doctor did mention that because I was not showing any symptoms I was probably OK, but I wasn’t comfortable with that because I work with the elderly. Then I got symptoms the next day where I lost my taste and sense of smell.

“At the start it just felt like the cold before I got the positive test.

“I thought naively I would be fine, that it will be like a cold and I will get better then I can get back to work hopefully because I love my work, I love caring for people.

“But it has really hit me hard and now I am here two months later still sick.”

Around a month after testing positive, the Perth College

UHI music student contacted 111 after suffering breathing difficulties, as well as severe fatigue and nausea.

“I couldn’t walk to the bathroom by myself, my partner had to help me and help me do daily tasks,” she said.

“It is hard, especially the fact that I care for other people so I know how it feels.

“I called 111 and they said they would patch me through to a COVID GP.

“They said it sounded like I had long-term COVID because I passed over the two-week period of isolation and was still not any better. It was difficult physically and mentally and no one expects that from a 21-year-old.

“I couldn’t get dressed myself, I had to shout my partner into the bathroom once after I had showered because I was unable to keep my own weight and I felt as though I couldn’t breathe.

“There was also a time I got up by myself and walked across the hall but then fainted on the spot.

“I didn’t think I would go down this hard, which is naive and annoys me now I think about that, so when I now see people my age thinking like that, I say ‘don’t’.

“You can’t know how it is going to attack your system and how that is going to affect you. It is a scary thing because you can’t breathe properly sometimes and then there are the coughing fits, the nausea and the fatigue.

“The doctor has given me codeine and paracetamol for the pains I have been having. I have been having chest and heart pain which is kind of terrifying when you are lying in bed at night and just about to go to sleep and you get a really bad pain and it sets off the breathing problems and then you start coughing.

“It is just a vicious circle unfortunately.

“I am still breathless a lot of the time and it is better some days and worse others.

“I don’t eat a lot as a general rule because of the nausea and the fatigue is so severe.

“I would pretty much sleep all day and be up all night or be up for days at a time because I just couldn’t sleep.”

Catherineanne has worked with myCare in Perth since April and has been told by doctors she is no longer infectious, however she fears about going back to work too early.

“I joined myCare so it was during the pandemic and I’d go from home to home and help elderly residents with their independence”, she said.

“I am told by the doctors I’m not infectious anymore but there is still that fear of maybe spreading it.

“I didn’t leave my house for 20 days and isolation is only 10.

“I am worried about going back, if I could spread it somehow, even though I was told that I wouldn’t.

“But there is a new strain so I am worried I will catch it now.

“I think for everyone you just have to be careful to avoid catching COVID as it will take time before enough people have got the vaccine.”