So anyway, this is a very personal post topic, and one I haven’t really ever spoken about at lenght before.
Post viral fatigue, and not from Covid 19.
I feel like I am playing last man standing here. I have had a couple of nasty colds over the last 2 years, but I have never tested positive.
I’m 52 now, and my experience started when I was 19.
I had completed my HND at college in computer data processing (the mainframe was the same size as my living room…) and I was working for an oil related company in Aberdeen. If you are born in Aberdeen, you are either oil and gas related, or you are a hairdresser. I really wanted to be a hairdresser, but there we are.
I can remember just having a usual week working, out with friends a couple of times, and I remember starting to feel unwell one night when i was out with friends, just really really hot, but my hands were freezing, and I was aching all over
Being 19 I just put it down to having a bit of a cold, or maybe something to do with my periods, which were painful when I was a teenager.
I battled on for a couple of days, not feeling my best and still going to work, but pouring sweat in the office, and then not being able to look at the lights, and wearing my sunglasses at my desk. I felt sick, hot, sweaty, and I couldn’t concentrate. I had no idea what was wrong.
One of my colleagues gave me a lift home, and when I got in the door, I told my Mum I didn’t feel good and went to bed. I was in bed with my sunglasses on and just feeling rotten, and my Mum an RGN at the time, put a phone call in to the Dr and I got a house visit. I remember it was dark when the doctor arrived, and he just said I had a bad cold and to give my paracetemol.
The next morning I woke up, I was yellow, including the whites of my eyes. My mum had already been into my room and put a phone call in and another Dr came back, samples were taken, and later that day, I was diagnosed with hepatitis A.
I actually don’t remember how long I was ill for as I was on drugs that left me pretty out of it, and my Mum got to nurse me at home. It was decided that It would stress me out too much being away from my family, and I was sleeping most of the time anyway.
When I was well enough, an infectious diseases nurse came to visit me, and i had to write down all the places I could remember being in for the last 6 months. Contact tracing is not new, it’s just that it was all done by paper and pen and in person.
After around 400 people had been swabbed, they found the carrier, working in a restaurant, and I had eaten food he had prepared. The likely method of infections was that he wasn’t washing his hands after visiting the bathroom.
Fast forward about 3 months I think, and I went back to work. I couldn’t wait to get back to work as I just wanted to feel normal again. I seriously had no idea how bad Hepatitis was and the effects that it could have on someone, and no one had spoken to me, or advised me how best to recover. I do remember being 7 stone in weight though.
I thought I was doing ok at work, but would regularly go off in dream, and someone would literally have to snap me out of it, and shout my name to get me back in the room. You know when cats do the 1000 feet stare and they just stare…. and stare….that was me.
I couldn’t concentrate, I was weepy, I ached all over, conversation was difficult, getting simple tasks done was a nightmare. I went back to the Dr and was just told, it’s just your age.
I do remember spending a lot of time sleeping, and I just carried on as best as I could. There was never a conversation about post viral fatigue, there was no phased return to work, there was nothing. I was just left to get on with it, and no one, including my family had any idea what was happening to me. I was just being the usual surly teenager and that was pretty much what it was put down too.
Then i got sacked.
I didn’t even get a conversation of, we need to talk, you’re not doing so well, it was a case of you’re not performing, you’re out. That’s it. I was so upset. If that happened today, i am pretty sure I would have been able to take them to some kind of tribunal for unfair dismissal.
Once upon a time there was no HR in oil and gas, same as once upon a time, there was no health safety with oil and gas either, until Piper Alpha happened.
So anyway, I didn’t work for the next year. I slept for most of the day, conversation was difficult, I still have trouble forming sentences and stumble over my words, age has taught some people in my life to be kinder about that, as menopause has obviously done turn as well. Ooft.
That’s when i kind of fell into working in hospitality, it seemed easy for me to do, and a family member owned a bar and it got me out of the house. I was bloody awful at it when I first started as my social skills and confidence had taken such a battering.
I’m actually welling up writing this, as not a lot of people know what happened to me when i was 19, but with all the chat around long covid which is basically post viral fatigue, it has made me have a ‘oh yeah I remember that happening to me’.
I didn’t get any support in the workplace. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
I had no idea how long the recover was, in short, there is not calender for this. I can honestly say that I took me til i was 27 to feel any kind of normal again.
This was all about 30 years ago now, it’s still pretty upsetting to think about what happened. That’s the reason i don’t really drink and never have been a heavy drinker, it doens’t suit me, but I do remember being told that my liver will have been damaged by the hepititis.
My advice to anyone who is recovering from Covid 19 is:
write everying down, keep a health diary
know that it’s not your fault if your body decides to let you know it’s not happy with the pace you are doing things
Post viral fatigue has no calender but I would roughtly say 6 months is the normal that I am seeing with friends and family who have contracted covid 19, but there are ebbs and flows
Your mood will be affected. Viruses of any kind are bloody awful and can reek havoc on your fight or flight feelings.
Expect to feel overwhelmed every now and again
Keep a notepad incase you have brain fog, but also your health diary will be great when you see a GP as you have everying written down.
It’s not your fault
It’s not your fault
And, it’s not your fault.
I’m not an expert but I can fully relate to anyone left with any kind of fatigue after this. Post viral fatigue has never been an area of serious study or discussion until now.
So anyway, fast forward to now.
I think I’m doing alright eh?
Onward
Elizabeth