Today Is Mothers Day in the UK. I am a Mother and a daughter and a daughter-in -law. We have three sons and a daughter ranging from 24 -10. One of our sons lives in London and the other one does live in Saffron Walden but not with us and so we were unable to see either of them. I couldn’t see my Mum either. Prior to us all self isolating my sister had invited everyone to their house for a Mothers Day Lunch which we obviously had to cancel. Such a shame but we all understand the necessity for this.
This morning I had to make my own cup of tea which I took back to bed as Matt has still no energy at all. Hayden, our eldest phoned up and immediately cheered me up and made me laugh as he always does. Anna came in and offered to get me breakfast in bed. She was having a bowl of Weetos and bought me some up too. I could taste them!! What an auspicious start to Mothers day!
Anna and I then decided to have a spa in the bathroom with pedicures, manicures and face creams followed by nail painting. We then went to plant some ranunculus bulbs in the garden which are due to flower in June which will be when we can see Mum again as she will be one of the people who is advised to stay inside for twelve weeks. She announced to us earlier that Boris will be writing to her……
Our next door neighbour collected us some bread and milk and bought us some wonderful rhubarb from their allotment. Elliott really fancied chicken soup and Cranberry juice so asked his friend Jake to go to Waitrose for him and I added butter onto that list as I am always in fear of running out of butter….. Pretty soon our front door was overflowing with food. Both Jake and Sheila reported that Waitrose was not as bare as it had been and there were even reports of pasta on the shelves at 2pm!
Sheila also kindly walked the dogs and Anna and I did some more of the Moomin Land she is making. I cooked a very basic roast chicken without any trimmings and then we all watched Absolutely Fabulous with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley and decided on an early night as virtual school starts tomorrow and I have, thankfully, work to make in the studio. I foolishly decided to bring my laptop to bed as writing at the end of the day has become quite addictive.
I began this blog to share my experience as a family of what we went through whilst ill with, thankfully, mild (except for Matt) symptoms of coronavirus. For yesterday and todays entries I feel like it is becoming a journal of our gardening and crafting activities as the illness is now over for me and the kids. I think I will probably continue keeping an online journal of our time during the Coronavirus pandemic for our own interest if nothing else, as I keep telling Anna these events are unprecedented in even Grandmas lifetime. You are welcome to check in of course…..
I can taste and smell, I don’t have a temperature or cough and I am not aching. If I count from when I now know what were cv19 symptoms I probably had the virus for about 11 days. Tomorrow I will have self isolated for the required seven days ( had I known the symptoms of aching and losing my sense of taste that happened the previous week I would have isolated then taking us to 11 days) I imagine I am now immune. I am not about to test this out. I will only be going out to walk my dogs and going to the shops for essential items, limiting my time out of the house as everyone has been advised to do. I will be observing social distancing and I will be constantly washing my hands still.
I have been astonished by a couple of messages I have received today either advising me not to go out for a while longer or suggesting to me that I shouldn’t be going near elderly people or the vulnerable as a I may still be contagious. NOBODY should be going near the elderly or vulnerable. I certainly won’t be even going near my Mum even though I will probably be immune. I have followed the NHS and PHE websites guidance on when I can leave my house and except for a few late night runs around town with the dogs, when I didn’t see a soul, I haven’t left the house for a minute. I don’t intend to leave the house unless it’s with the dogs or to pop to Waitrose, pretty much all I ever did anyway!
I know this is an extremely frightening and contagious virus and I know how scared everyone is of catching it. We were terrified when we realised we had it and even more so when we realised I had probably had it longer than we thought…… Matt is still completely knocked out with it. He is absolutely exhausted if he does anything more than come downstairs. He is vanishing before our eyes and he has had it now for seven days with no signs of leaving the bed or sofa let alone the house ( except for the drive by chip shop queue check out last night) He has a wheezy chest despite two weeks ago being the second fastest swimmer in the world and holder of British Records. He normally has enormous lung capacity and I think this has saved him from ending up being even worse than he is. We are obviously monitoring his progress and thankfully he doesn’t seem to be getting worse. He was reassured a little this evening when he read a post on twitter of swimmer Cameron van der Burgh who seems to have had an identical experience of cv19.
Here is a chart that shows you the 7 day /14 day isolation pattern in case you are in any doubt as to when you should leave the house if you too succumb to cv 19. I am the Mum in this example.
I would like to end this blog with a huge thank you to our dear friends and neighbours who have helped us get shopping and dog walking and you know we are here and ready to return the favour. I will continue to update with Matts progress back to health and hope our experiences are of help to anyone who is worried about catching cv19 or who has it right now.
A quick shout out too to Amy Louise flowers of Saffron Walden who delivered two beautiful Mothers day bouquets to our mothers this weekend as we were unable to see them. A thank you to Emily at Straw London who wrote and posted Mothers Day cards for us as we were unable to do that too and Hannah at Polished Grey Jewellery who made, wrote a card and posted my friend Rachels birthday present as I was unable.