We arrived home in the early hours of Saturday 14th March from a wonderful 2 week cruise around the Canaries. Little did we know how much life would change from when we started our holiday. Sunday 15th March I realised that we had nothing in the house so after sorting out Richard I set out for Tesco’s. Wow – I couldn’t believe my eyes. Empty shelves, people running round like lunatics. No toilet rolls!! It then hit me that this ‘rumour’ we heard on the cruise about a virus had turned into reality. We had a Doctor’s appointment for Richard on Monday 16th March and after that the lockdown began.
Life in lockdown has been extremely hard for me. I had got a great routine going for our week. Everyday we had something planned and I loved it. I suppose it gave me less time to think about our situation and the fact that I was Richard’s carer and our life was inextricably entwined around Stroke. We had gone from a busy, busy week to absolutely ‘bugger all’. I was lost. Richard was suffering with a bad chest and so once again he was put on antibiotics and steroids. His everyday question was ‘what are we doing today’ and my everyday answer was ‘nothing’. Richard has struggled to understand that everything is in lockdown and that we can’t go out for a meal or round the shops.
My main focus was on food! Where would we get it from? How would we get it? Richard had been told to shield so this meant I had to be extremely careful as I didn’t want to bring anything back in the house that shouldn’t be there! My daughter, Gemma, who lives around the corner was also having to shield as she has MS. This all made me extremely anxious.
Zoom was then introduced to us. What a lifeline this was for me. I could discuss with others about my anxieties and it is so true ‘a trouble shared is a trouble halved’. I now had a great sounding board and gained great feedback from all our lovely members who were going through the same anxious times as me. Life was not quite as bad as I had made it seem.
I managed to get weekly deliveries for food – so that was a huge tick off my list of things that were causing me problems. I also realised I was very similar to Richard in the fact that I hadn’t got a clue what day it was either!! We soon had a little routine again. Shower, get
dressed, breakfast. Out in the garden for a couple of hours (thank goodness for the great weather) or a chat on Zoom at 11 a.m. Lunch and then Richard went for his siesta. I started knitting (something I hadn’t done for years) so while Richard was having his sleep I knitted.
Every evening we go on to Zoom at 7 p.m. for whatever is on and we laugh. We laugh long and hard every evening. This makes us all feel so much better. Laughter definitely is a great medicine. We’ve had great quizzes (some we’d like to forget…), bingo, talks, exercises – we’ve covered most things. We miss all our wonderful friends from NPTSG and we are so thankful to see the few that have managed to get on to Zoom.
Monday the 1st June we went out for a walk. This was the first time for Richard to get outside walking since 16th March – 11 weeks!! What a difference that made for Richard. His whole demeanour has now changed. He has not wanted to do any exercise during this time indoors. To be fair, he hasn’t been fully fit because of his chest (he’s back on antibiotics and steroids). However, the walk has re-invigorated him. We now try and go for a walk each day and we only go where we hope that there are very few people. So far we have been lucky.
We can’t wait to get back to ‘normal’ whatever that will be and we can’t wait to be back with all our friends at group. Until then take care and keep in touch!!
