Dear LPG 


We have all heard about Long COVID and how many people are still suffering from it, but it has been a while now and most of us have forgotten, or so we think.    


That thought came into my head because, while there are official figures, I think that more people suffer than are included in those statistics and perhaps many of them go under the radar so to speak.   


I took a look at what the NHS website has to say about all this and found a list of the symptoms. I don’t know if it has been set out in order of how widespread these symptoms are, but they are listed as: 


• a blocked or runny nose 
• a cough 
• a sore throat 
• chest pain or tightness and noticeable heartbeats (heart palpitations) 
• losing your hair and getting skin rashes, such as hives 
• headaches, feeling dizzy and vertigo 
• sudden confusion (delirium), especially in older people 
• difficulty sleeping (insomnia) 
• changes to your senses, such as problems with your vision, earaches, hearing ringing sounds inside your ear (tinnitus), and differences in your sense of smell or taste 
• tummy pain and diarrhoea 
• feeling or being sick, losing weight and not feeling like eating 
• pins and needles, and aches and pains in different parts of your body 
• anxiety and depression 


I don’t know if the list has been itemised in order of how common these symptoms are but I could not help but notice that depression and anxiety are at the bottom.   I suspect that many of us older people know someone who never actually goes out any more even though there is no physical reason why not. 


I have a friend who I used to meet up with regularly before we were all locked down.  We have a few things in common including the fact that we were both born within months of each other, we both live quite close to each other and we both live alone.  We also both retired in 2019 and although we have lived just a few doors away from each other for years our nods of hello turned from casual acquaintanceship to a real friendship during that first year when we both retired.     


We started by going shopping together each week but it was not long before we booked outings, visits one to another’s homes and excursions that coincided.  But then came covid and that enforced relationship that was relegated to our phones and now, I seem to do all the visiting which always happens in her home.   


She has family and other friends who visit regularly and I visit a few times a week, but it recently dawned on me that she does not actually go anywhere any more except on the rare occasion when one of her family takes her by car.  I think that, even though she always appears upbeat when I visit, she has become a bit of an agoraphobic while both of us watched but never really noticed and, now I come to think of it, I think it all started when lockdown ended.  She is fine as long as we don’t mention the outside and if it ever comes up in conversation she changes the subject.   


As we all started coming out of lockdown, I remember hearing many of our politicians talking about ‘the new normal’ that we were going to have to get used to when we ventured out again.  The news bulletins were full of that phrase and when we were free it is true that many aspects of life did not just fall back into place.  The three or four times a week that were spent with my friend comprised of my doing a lot of visiting and her doing all the hosting, rather than the outings that we were used to. I accepted that it would get better, but three years on she hardly goes out at all. 


The irony is that, a couple of years of on and off lockdown really did produce a new normal which I got really used to before realising what might be going on.  She has a son that I have met a few times and I had the opportunity to mention my worry to him although he lives quite a way away and is always working. 


The realisation of a possible problem had me looking at the internet for information about symptoms and ways I can help and, even though I could find a little on the subject of helping a friend through it, there was not a lot about the self-help aspect.   I found some information which I shared with her and we read through it together with the result that we started with the odd walk to the park down the road and recently took the bus to the shops.  I don’t think it is the easiest thing that she has ever done but we are definitely getting out and about a bit more these days. 


I decided to write about this because it took me a long time to realise what was happening and I don’t think I can be the only person who knows someone who might be avoiding their front door. 


DN, South London 

 

 

DN shares what she found…

 

 

(►►►)   (►►►)     (►►►)    (►►►)   

 

 

(►►►)    (►►►)    (►►►)