My eyes were sore and dry from the heater of the car turned on full and the hills in the distance were separating their dark shadow from the cold blues and yellows of a mid-March dawn sky. Music played to the sweet sting of coffee in the back of my throat as my eyes fixed on the only other headlights I’d see on the road. First light they call it. No one wants to get up at this hour, but sometimes the wind blows in the right direction and the tide is at the right height and so is the swell, and later in the day all will be lost for the sake of a few more indulgent hours on the pillow. “I get up earlier than this for work, surely this is more important than work” I mused to myself. Hopes are usually dashed at this hour but today the decision was blessed, and I watched the sun rise from the icy spring waters of my second favourite surf spot awaiting my next early morning tube.

I got back to my car after my surf, one of the locals saw me and said, “surfing’s banned here later”. A little confused and first thinking it was maybe some passive aggressive half joking not joking localism, I pressed the man for an answer. The man explained that surfing had been banned in Europe because of this new virus. I had heard about this virus but had given up on watching or reading the news. It seemed to me that news in recent years had become little more than fear inducing sensationalism made of half-truths and omitted facts which hardly had a bearing on reality. I did not worry about this virus, as far as I was concerned it was just another prop for fear.

As the week drew on, strange things started to occur. My university, where I’m studying to become a paramedic, cancelled my placement. All the pubs and restaurants were closed. I started to get a little more concerned. However, the sun was shining and there were waves, and the fact that I was not working meant I could surf. So, I did; two surfs a day, beers in the evening watching sunsets at my favourite spot. 

One of my housemates had developed a cough, mild, then got better, she reckoned she had been slightly unwell and could have had a fever. I started to get a minor sore throat, a little tired maybe. I put it down to all the surfing I’d been doing. At this point there were hardly any cases reported in Cornwall where I live, I did not suspect that I was coming down with the coronavirus.

Monday the 233rd of March was the first news I had watched in a long time. The prime minister stood in front of flashing lights and small pulpit with his unkept blond wig-like hair and dictated in the voice of a drunken aristocrat the rules of social distancing and self-isolation. The question on many of our lips was, can we still surf? One form of exercise was allowed, so I guessed so…

The next day was big surf, spring tides, I went for a short surf, there was no one around. My chest started to feel tight, I put it down to nerves.

I got out and ran over to some tourists, two parents, two kids, marching towards the torrents of swirling rip synonymous with larger surf at Porthtowan and advised them not to enter the water. The run made me feel out of breath. What were they thinking entering such a dangerous ocean? I imagined if an incident had happened, no lifeguards. It would have been a tragedy 

That evening I was a little bit wheezy, I’m asthmatic so took my inhaler and fell asleep.

I woke the next morning, felt tired, my face felt sore and my ears were blocked but nothing that a big cup of coffee wouldn’t sort out. I quaffed my coffee and headed down to the beach, the sunshine seemed extra bright, my throat seemed extra dry, something did not seem right. I put it to the back of my mind as I drove through hazy morning towards the beach. I saw my friend at the carpark. We hurried getting changed, feeling like criminals, and ran down the cold stones and sand with a biting southeast wind on the back of our necks.  The surf was over head and clean, the sun was shining, the water green peaks that shifted on a swift moving tide.   

Action Shots: J-dog

I couldn’t breathe properly and felt cold in an unusual way

I had a few okay waves, some turns that felt nice, however, I was feeling strange.  I couldn’t breathe properly and felt cold in an unusual way. I was trying to shake it off as anxiety after all the world just entered an unpresented situation. I got a few more waves, took off late on one, didn’t make it. The wave held me down for a little longer than expected, as I surfaced, I started seeing stars. I took this as a bad sign. I got straight out of the water, got to the sand and noticed that I was not feeling good.  I walked back up the beach, the sky had started to wobble, and the air took on an uneasy viscosity. I saw my friends walking with their dog and child. I hardly spoke to them. I just wanted to get into my car and drive home. On returning to my car, people in the car park tried speaking to me but I couldn’t speak. I took a few more puffs of my inhaler and drove home. My inhaler didn’t alleviate the breathlessness I was feeling. I got home and I got in the shower in my wetsuit and felt like I was going to pass out. Half an hour passed, and my breathlessness waned. Maybe it was a panic attack I thought to myself, so I just continued my usual day; weeded the garden, made cheeseburgers and went for a walk to watch the sunset.

That evening I lay down to sleep and felt short of breath, worse than before, took my inhaler but it was useless. The thought lay thick and heavy across my chest: I have Covid! I called 111 for advice, I knew I had to self-isolate, I didn’t know when I should seek help. They just said, ‘self-isolate’ and repeated it robotically. I managed to get a few hours sleep. The next day I sat in my garden concentrating on breathing, my lungs felt tiny and brittle, I was unable to eat and feeling worried. That evening the symptoms appeared to lift. I thought I was over it, but it returned the next day and the pattern continued until the eighth day. I couldn’t move, my vision darkened, and my room swayed. Nausea set in and the air looked like liquid. 

I improved a little in the middle of the day, then evening came. As the sky darkened, I lay in my bed, freezing, then hot.  The walls in my room shivered, my bed side lamp glowed, dull and paler than usual and my sheets stuck to my clammy back. I messaged my flatmate. ‘I’m scared, help’ as my chest walls clamped tight around my lungs. He called an ambulance.  It was a short time before the ambulance crew turned up. Dark green uniforms floated through my door and hovered over the accumulated mess that had come with sickness and isolation, their masked faces stood over me as I heard the familiar questions. I got assessed, I wasn’t sick enough to go in hospital, they said. They gave me a nebulizer full of salbutamol (for asthma), this loosened my chest. They left around 2 a.m. The nebulized salbutamol is a stimulant so my heart was beating so hard I could hear it thumping on my mattress, I didn’t sleep.

They took me into hospital, I got my blood taken, chest X-rayed, but no Covid test.

Around 7am the salbutamol wore off, the tightness resumed in my chest. I had to call an ambulance again, I felt embarrassed but, how, when you’re struggling to breath do you know your breathing is not going to just stop altogether? I didn’t have a pulse oximeter at that point (a device for measuring oxygen saturation in the blood) and I started having a flash back to a time when I had gone, as paramedic student, to a women having an asthma attack; she was blue, her eyes bulged out of her head with panic, she was about to die, and we had just arrived on time to give her life saving treatment. I prayed I would not get that bad. The paramedics arrived; I knew them, they were nice people. My vitals where assessed and they were all normal. My temp was slightly raised, the only indication that I was sick was my spirometer (measuring how much can be expelled from air) reading half its usual strength.

They took me into hospital, I got my blood taken, chest X-rayed, but no Covid test. I wasn’t sick enough to stay in hospital, the x-ray was clear so I got sent home.

The next two weeks were full of nightmares, panic attacks, very little sleep and days on end feeling like I couldn’t breathe, in isolation, in my room with nothing but a phone screen for company. The TV on and laughter next door. Time passed and every neighbour was at home listening to music, sawing, grinding metal, drilling and talking in excited tones. The clocks changed; the evening light caught the budding branches of the treetops that lined the road opposite, spring was passing me by as I lay feeling hopeless.

I went back to the hospital after two weeks and got tested, it came back negative. I was still ill but the doctors put it down to lingering symptoms.

I moved back to live with my mum and sister, just took a small bag of clothes, thinking I’d be better in a week or two.  It felt good to be out of isolation, and get looked after by family, but the symptoms continued.

I’ve been here with my family for over a month now. I feel like my breathing is getting better slowly but I can’t do much, I have no energy, it’s strange to have no energy. I’m 33 years old and friends have said I was the fittest person they knew. Now I just play my guitar, draw, learn French and maybe go for a 5-minute walk on a good day.  I’ve been suffering with this for 8 weeks (at the time of writing) and improvement is slow.  I have to keep reminding myself, ‘I will get better, I will get better, I will get better, I will get better…I will get better.’