A DIABETIC teacher who suffers from other underlying health conditions has told how she contracted and beat coronavirus.
Sarah Hall started to feel unwell a few weeks ago – but put it down to the stresses of her job in a secondary school in North London.
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The 26-year-old, who in addition to having Type 1 diabetes, also has a condition known as A1AT which affects her lung and liver.
She told the Daily Telegraph that a day later she developed a cough and felt freezing so she was advised by her employer to self-isolate for 14 days.
Sarah soon began to suspect she may have caught coronavirus and called NHS 111.
She said: “I struggled to breathe and felt constantly dizzy – I felt like I was about to pass out. But I tried to keep calm, drink plenty of water and keep as busy as I could.”
A couple of days later, she thought she was starting to feel better as her coughing had eased, her breathing was steadier and her fever wasn’t as erratic.
But by the following afternoon, her condition took a turn.
Sarah says she started sweating before blacking out on multiple occasions.
She was also going through spells of vomiting, having coughing fits and feeling dizzy as she struggled to breathe.
By the end of Friday afternoon, she had been sick four times.
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Sarah said: “At this point, I’m unsure whether to go to hospital. I feel as though I’ll be wasting valuable resources and I may be an infection risk to vulnerable patients.”
At 7pm the following night, she was in a “really bad way” and called NHS 111 again.
Seven hours later she got her third call back and said she felt like the person on the phone was trying to convince her to cancel the ambulance.
She said: “My boyfriend speaks to them because I am so breathless. They tell me it will be a long wait and do I really want the ambulance? I do.”
High risk
Another call came at 4am and the woman admitted that the ambulance is still going to be hours away so it would be best if she made her own way to hospital.
But she couldn’t offer a taxi via the NHS because that would put others at risk.
Luckily, Sarah had recently bought a car and her boyfriend was on the insurance.
So at 5am, they packed a bag and made their way to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North West London.
Sarah was given a coronavirus test and found out later that day that she had tested positive for the disease.
She said: “I was severely dehydrated so was ordered fluids, and then sent back home.
“By day seven of the virus I felt better and the symptoms started to lessen. My birthday was ruined though – I couldn’t blow out candles!
“It’s not pleasant but I have a lung condition as well as diabetes and I conquered the virus.”
It comes after a cystic fibrosis sufferer who tested positive for coronavirus shared his message of hope after beating the disease.
Daniel James-Lacey McInerney said he was “absolutely terrified” after contracting Covid-19 and feared that he was going to die.
But after two weeks of hospital treatment and home quarantine, the 21-year-old, of Camden, North London, has finally beaten the virus.
He told the Daily Express: “I know the ‘at risk’ vulnerable people in the UK are scared of what is going on, but I want to give them some hope.
“I have no idea at all how I caught coronavirus, where I caught it or why, but I have faced it and fought it off.
“If someone with lungs working at only 25 per cent, weakened by cystic fibrosis can shake off Covid-19 I feel confident many more people can.”
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has said the UK will get through the coronavirus crisis “together” after Britons were warned restrictions on their lives may last for at least six months.
The Prime Minister issued the words of encouragement, praising the 750,000 volunteers who have offered to assist the NHS, from within Downing Street where he is isolating having tested positive for Covid-19.
It came after England’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries said the nation will not be in “complete lockdown” for half a year but said social distancing measures will be lifted gradually.
Dr Harries said the three-week reviews on the measures to slow the disease’s spread are likely to continue for six months and their success would be judged on slowing its rate.
A sudden lifting, she said, could see the nation’s sacrifices “wasted” with another spike in deaths, which have reached 1,228.
“We need to keep that lid on and then gradually we will be able to hopefully adjust some of the social distancing measures and gradually get us all back to normal,” she said.
“Three weeks for review, two or three months to see if we’ve really squashed it, but three to six months, ideally, but lots of uncertainty in that but then to see at which point we can actually get back to normal and it is plausible it could go further than that.”
