What a crazy ~5 years it has been.
Oh how I laughed with my other postie colleagues when suddenly loads of Chinese students came back from Xmas '19 holidays and were ordering face masks galore, silly stuff like there was an impending bad Darth Vadar costume party.
Then I came home from work around 17th March '20 and as soon as I opened the door, I could hear my better half repeatedly coughing. Days later, she could barely breathe, if she went for a walk she had to stop and rest after a very slow 5mins max. After ~2 very anxious months, she recovered enough to return to work and by mid summer, she was almost her old self again.
While I had the worst headache of my life for ~24 hours around 20th March and then returned to cycling for fitness. On the one hand, great it's not going to affect me, but on the other worrying how vulnerable my better half was going to be.
Then the worst fear happened in November '20, my better half got covid again and it hit her almost as hard as the first time, but with much more pronounced fatigue especially if she exercised and she started long term sick leave Xmas '20 due to long covid.
Me? Just felt like a mild head cold, but took it easy, no problems.
In spring, summer and Xmas '21, we got our covid vaccine jabs that would reduce odds of a future serious infection. They did a bit of a number on me each time for ~2 weeks, but had to be worth it, in case we caught covid again.
~2.5 years later, she returned to work (NHS patient support) on phased return in summer '22, really struggling but she mostly battled through.
Then during our first night on holiday in late September '22, my throat began to feel incredibly sore, my legs felt dead riding the hills around Longleat. Thought it was just a badly timed cold. Was same for my better half. I took second half of holiday very easy.
But returned home and remembered posts of throat feeling full of glass splinters with latest covid. Instant positive. Tested positive for over 2.5 weeks and felt like death warmed up despite no coughing at all. Somehow we didn't pass it on to family, better half shared car home with her mum that had been on holiday with us, sister visited for a day on hol and was fine too.
Fortunately, better half suffered less than me and recovered much quicker, returning to work.
I was left drained mentally and physically, was on sick leave for almost a year and then took ill health retirement September '23.
And here I am, still unfit for work and still massively down on my old cycling fitness and stamina numbers, but the criteria for ESA and PIP say I'm not ill enough for benefits. The IHR payment now gone, now it's time to start using the small amount of savings I built up over ~14 years as a postie.
Was I too cautious at work, especially in early '22, the only place I was exposed to a load of people caring more about getting the job done rather than their health by social distancing?
Would catching covid within a few months of my last vaccine jab have made a difference, rather than it being over 9 months later?
Was it my fault for not thinking covid on holiday without any coughing, doing too much relatively intense cycling up the hills?
Who knows. All I do know is I'm part of the statistics regarding people not working after covid. It could have been worse, many around the world lost love ones from covid, but who knew five little years could change my life and many others so much.
