Page 386 - She's One Crazy Lady!

was hard. Not seeing people – harder. I’d heard from Wellingborough Borough Council that we could apply for a £10,000 grant that would help towards paying the rent and other expenses. With no money coming in but money going out it was a relief when we heard we had been successful, knowing at least we’d got some level of support and that the Charity’s hard-earned money in the bank, and donations that were now few and far between, were protected for the time being.
I missed the company of our team and our visitors immensely – we all missed each other and although we phoned regularly and kept up to date via Facebook and other social media platforms, this was not the same as meeting together to have a chat and a laugh. I also missed quality time spent with Marilyn due to the Covid restrictions, although with Marilyn living on a farm where there was a lot of outside space, we were able to meet outside when the weather allowed but we still had to be extremely careful – as did the rest of the world.
Our phone bills were incredibly high!
Still feeling unwell, I felt I had to see a doctor but there were no face-to-face appointments. I’d experienced chest pains and I’d had a frightening ‘thunderclap headache’. I managed to get a phone call from a doctor and was told to go into the surgery. The doctor I saw was dressed like a spaceman in his protective gear, the waiting area eerily quiet... I was told my heart was racing and that I had very high blood pressure, something I’d never had before, so I was sent off to A&E at Kettering General where, over the next few months I must have seen every ‘ologist’ in every department, with CT, MRI and bone scans and numerous tests to try and get to the bottom of what was happening, and why. With symptoms persisting, it was a mystery. I was becoming a regular at Nene Park in Irthlingborough where I had dozens of blood tests and it was here that a nurse suggested that I may originally have had Covid as so many of my symptoms and the after-effects (Long Covid) mirrored the symptoms I was still experiencing. She said she had spoken to a lot of people who, like me, were very unwell at that time. I was even referred to the Breast Clinic so that a reoccurrence of breast cancer could be ruled out.
I could not fault the attention I was being afforded.
My appointment at the Breast Clinic was bizarre, especially because at that time, I had been working closely with the Consultants and the Breast Care Team to talk through our very large project with them to ‘Spruce Up’ the waiting area. Changing into one of the familiar capes (which were, thankfully, much improved since my diagnosis in 2001) I was apprehensive. In walked Mr Musa and a Breast Care Nurse I knew well.
“What are you doing here?” We laughed. Masks were the order of the day so, as was by now, the norm, we couldn’t read each others’ faces.
I could feel the embarrassing and familiar trickle of sweat running down my back and under my arms. I had to forget I knew him. It felt
“I missed the company of our team and our visitors immensely – we all missed each other and although we phoned regularly, this was not the same
as meeting together to have a chat and a laugh. ”
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