I’ve been home from hospital since 29th December, which was a day of very high emotions for me, as both myself and then my hospital buddy learnt from the consultants on the ward rounds that we had indeed achieved 24 hours of stable pulse ox levels with no oxygen and were going to be discharged to our respective homes. There was the frustration of waiting for take-out meds to be dispensed and discharge letters to be typed up; the sudden and slightly deflating confirmation I could go, in what then seemed almost indecent haste, with hurried farewells; the sudden shock of walking on my own flimsy legs back through an Acute MU ward, something I had only done in my med-driven nightmares, and then to a set of lifts, and down five floors onto what seemed like an almost absurdly long corridor. I actually did mutter under my breath: ‘you have GOT to be kidding me!’ and the lovely nursing assistant – let’s call her Roxy – said ‘ooh do you need to stop, do you need me to get a wheelchair?’ – and I remembered that my wife was at the end of that seemingly endless expanse and said: No, no thank you Roxy, I can do this. I walked close to the handrail, not touching it but my hand floating as if playing my own strength on a theramin. I felt hollow and my legs seemed to have dissolved but I could still perceive the floor’s solidity and knew I was not going to fold up and fall. So I plodded slowly onwards. My time perception was still highly elastic and the walk felt like a few seconds and many minutes all at the same time. My legs did not hurt or ache at all, as I thought they might. Finally we approached the open expanse of the hospital’s main reception. I could see my wife but she was looking in many directions other than mine. I had not seen her moving, lively face for a week and the last time, I was struggling to breathe. She looked like the only, best thing in my universe and I wanted to enfold her in my pipe cleaner arms and say: Honestly, this *is* me trying to hug you.

There were shenanigans in fetching the car and what felt like a long wait for her to pull into the bay. I was outside wearing a fleece and feeling a bit ‘nesh’, when two inpatients in pyjamas and dressing gowns came out to stand nearby for a fag. They’d overheard our conversation about a belated Christmas lunch and perhaps a beer, (I know, I know, daft idea – but yes, I did) and I braced myself for some piss-taking, but no: ‘alright mate! you getting out of ‘ere then, goin’ to ‘ave yer Christmas dinner yeah? an’ a beer? Good on ya mate!’ I thought I should say something so I simply said: yeah, it’s going to be great to see my family, I’ve just got out from the COVID ward you see.

“FAAAAAAARRKK really mate? Bloody ‘ell well done mate well done good on ya –“

Soon I was in the warm car and the journey back, so familiar, so surreal was actually really good at grounding me back into external reality, so that when we reached home it felt normal and natural and just so very good indeed. The cats were there to greet me with chirps and head-to-knee rubs. I went through the door to what felt like Paradise and there were presents and hugs and tears and love and it was All Very Good Indeed.

I was still very, very sick. I managed to remember enough about the isolation to make sure I didn’t put in danger the family members as yet untouched by the disease.

Since then there has been a very long, very slow recovery not only from the virus itself, but also massively going through withdrawal from medication and a weird mixture of the subsiding side effects as I detoxed, with a whole bunch of new and exceptionally awful symptoms of the actual withdrawal. I would say that period of over a week has been one of the real lows because it happened after the euphoria of returning home. Nonetheless, I am now substantially recovered from most of it: but by whatever gods you use, I still ache with tiredness, I am still fighting with insomnia, the struggle to stay hydrated remains a daily reality, I cannot remember such muscle weakness and chronic fatigue despite a range of minor illnesses earlier in life. The fear of a DVT and the invasiveness of the elevation of feet and balancing that with moving and walking and trying to do normal things around all of that too, that element is now surprisingly high up in my thoughts because it is very disruptive to life in general.

I’m very far from being able to say: I am Well. Yet, each day feels like a new start on a higher step of the ladder.