Old year, new year

And so farewell 2020. The year in which we stepped through the looking glass into a strange new world. I'm not sure we can ever go back. Only forwards, wishing that 2021 brings us peace, hope and joy.

Long Covid: Week 18

Belated update. Week 18, but written about mid-week 19. Words and sentences feel hard to grab out of my brain at the moment. When tired, I seem to have developed mild dyslexia. Letters sometimes add themselves up in the wrong order. I don't know the name for thinking of one word and saying another, but there's that too. I'm measuring the recovery of my mind in crosswords. Those quick crossword books. Finding answers to clues. Dragging dusty words from the clogged-up corners of my memory. Now I'm measuring it in reading too. One novel a week ago, now more. This week Nell Stevens's Bleaker Island; Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing of Esme Lennox; Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman. The words must be coming back. Steps are coming back too: up to 5,000 now in day. Of course, there are the lingering symptoms: nerve pain, tinnitus, inflamed (I think) ribs and abdomen, burning sensations, thudding, pulsing head, acid reflux. Fatigue, too, is a constant now. A phone call, trying to concentrate for an hour is exhausting. Coordination. I've just spilt a cup of roiboos tea. Although, anyone who knows me will tell you that this occurrence is nothing to do with Covid. That's my old clumsy self.

Long Covid: Week 17

It's the middle of week 17. Relapses seem to be an integral part of Long Covid, and sometimes it can  feel hard to trust small victories. Or as if celebrating them might jinx them. But, hey, I'm happy that this week I've been able to walk 2,500 steps each day, divided into a groups of several hundred steps. I've not needed a daytime nap. I've read a whole book from cover to cover (Rosamund Lupton's Three Hours. Totally gripping). I drove round the block. There's no way I'd have been able to do any of these things even a week ago.

(Ongoing symptoms, if helpful for any fellow Covid Long-Haulers: nerve pain, dry throat, a new mouth ulcer for a day, memory loss, sore joints and feet, stinging and tired eyes, sudden spasms of pain, a freezing right foot, can't lie on my left side (told you this virus was strange), problems regulating body temperature, insomnia, fatigue, tinnitus, and thudding in my head.)

Signs and symptoms of long-haul Covid (Week one)

I don't think I would usually fancy reeling off my medical history in a public space, nor would anyone be interested in reading it, but this feels different. Long-Haul Covid, as I think it's being called, is new to the world. I hope sharing my experience might be helpful for others going through it, even simply if it's to know that you're not alone. That became my mantra as I lay in bed ill. Isolated. But not alone. The sheer scale of this illness must mean that there will be scientific research. The medics will begin to understand how to treat it. We will get better. I can recommend joining one of the online support groups – on Facebook or Slack – too. I certainly felt relief after doing so.

Week One (Days 1-7)

Coronavirus was everywhere in the news. Wash your hands, then wash your hands some more. There were two official symptoms, high temperature and a new dry, continuous cough. So when I had uncontrollable shaking one Sunday afternoon, a cold sore, a small nose bleed, and mouth ulcers, it didn't really cross my mind that it was Covid-19. Even when I had diarrhoea the next day, I thought, well, that's horrible and odd, and carried on with life. It was the following evening, Tuesday 17 March, that the high temperature and fever hit. Oh. I woke early the next morning, breath rasping and short, with a dry cough. Heart racing. A bat fluttering in my chest. 

The symptoms came in waves. It was disconcerting. How ill am I? Am I imagining this? I felt better, sat up  at a desk for an hour, and was then totally exhausted. As if my muscles couldn't hold me up. Was that possible? 

That evening I sat on the sofa to eat soup and bread, and realised I couldn't taste it. Wholemeal crumbs in my mouth, like eating sawdust and cardboard. More energy the next day, but also a cough that felt as if would rip open the tissues in your chest because they were so dry. Heart racing when I walked up the stairs. I spent Friday lying in bed. At some points awake but so tired that I could barely reply to an email. At others, feeling well enough to talk on the phone. At yet others, asleep. 

Covid-19 messes with your mind.

On the Saturday, my birthday, I woke up determined to enjoy the day despite being ill and in isolation alone. I got in the shower, and felt as if I couldn't stand. Chest pain. Turns out I had low blood pressure on standing. Anxiety. I actually hadn't been feeling anxious before then. I knew I wasn't in a high-risk category, nor did I have any pre-existing health conditions. Friends organised a Zoom online – ah, remember when Zoom was new and exciting – for my birthday. I joined for a while, but could barely hold my head up. It felt so heavy.

By the Monday I thought I was feeling better, and joined a gentle Yin Yoga class online. I couldn't lift  my arms over my head, or lean forward. My entire back felt as if it had been dried out into a crisp, and that moving would scrunch and tear it. Still not well, then? 

But remember… it's a fever and a cough. 

A temperature again on day six. It went. I'd been given medical advice to go outside as soon as my seven-day isolation ended, to help cope with the anxiety. I did, just along the road a little, by myself and without seeing anyone. Back home. I hoped that would be the end  of it.

Kindness

Before I write about illness, I want to say something about kindness. I wouldn't have got through the last few months of Covid in lockdown without it, and it's still remarkable to me how kind people have been. I feel lucky. Neighbours who I didn't know before who have done my shopping, picked up prescriptions, taken me to the doctor, checked how I was doing. The friend who brought me soup and left it on my doorstep every day, who for weeks brought me meals to reheat because I couldn't stand up for long enough to cook. Friends who came and stood outside the window to talk through the glass when I was twice in isolation. Who have come to visit with gifts from their gardens. Who have sent cards, flowers and food. Who have simply showed up and smiled. My family, who have been there whenever I needed, with support of all sorts. The paramedics and GP who put themselves at risk of infection and came into my home to assess me. The doctor who literally went out of his way to get the right antibiotic, the neighbour who lent  me a new thermometer, the physios running free post-covid recovery online classes. Thank you. I'll have forgotten too many specifics – ah, short term memory loss is one fun feature of this virus – but not the incredible power of human kindness. That'll stick.

Mild

Mild. Even the word sounds gentle, with its soft consonants. Unthreatening. Covid would be mild for most. I hung on to the word. Reassuring, a comfort blanket. Mild is a sniffly cold, a sore tummy, a light haze of headache. That sort of thing.

Don't be fooled. What started out as mild Covid-19 back in March soon escalated for me. Thankfully – and I am so thankful for this – not to hospital admission level. More of that in another post. But Covid mild is not in the same league as even a seasonal flu.

Does mild cover an illness that lasts 102 days – and counting? Having to crawl along the floor to get water because I was too weak to stand? A heart pounding as if I'd been running a 10K, but all I'd done was lie down and breathe? Hallucinations, rashes, blinding headaches, pain all over my body, memory loss, days of sleeping for 12 hours? 

It seems that coronavirus is not simply either mild or severe in the sense that the initial public messaging suggested. There's a version somewhere in-between that causes debilitating symptoms that drag on and on. I have no idea why, nor is there any official medical guidance yet. The government has been slow to address this issue.

Mild, this illness is not. Mysterious, that's the only certainty I have.

100 days of Covid-19

At the start of the year, I was planning a rare trip to Singapore to visit friends this June. 'But I'll wait to book the flights,' I naively said in January, as the country started to impose restrictions. 'I'll just see what happens with this coronavirus thing'. We both thought it would blow over. Of course, we all know what actually happened. And here I am, 100 days after falling ill with suspected Covid-19, still not feeling better but inching forward along the path to recovery. The closest I've got to Singapore is watching Michael Portillo in his pastel outfit touring on TV. Sadly, I've got to know Covid-19 rather better. Another friend suggested blogging about it might be therapeutic. Maybe it'll also be helpful for others who have the virus. Because it turns out this is not simply a seven-day illness for lots of people. Here goes.

February 2020 reviews for The Times

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla
3 February 2020

Unsuk Chin’s Spira is subtitled Concerto for Orchestra, and this teeming 25-minute soundscape certainly put the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra through its virtuosic paces. What the title fails to point out is that this is an Olympic-level workout for the listener too. It was just as well that Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla began by summoning our concentration. Raising her arms as if to start conducting, she then paused until the audience’s momentary silence transformed into an expectant stillness.

Full review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/city-of-birmingham-symphony-orchestra-mirga-grazinyte-tyla-review-the-more-closely-you-listened-the-more-there-was-to-discover-lvqqtb7xx

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Iván Fischer
10 February 2020

What if Mozart’s three final symphonies were not individual pieces but one huge extended work? That was the “firm belief” of the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt, explained the evening’s conductor, Ivan Fischer. The evidence: all three were written in one creative burst in 1788, and, unusually, were without commission. So how about listening to them, Fischer suggested, as 12 individual movements.

Full review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/orchestra-of-the-age-of-enlightenment-fischer-review-a-disjointed-take-on-mozart-kdh07g5bc

January 2020 reviews for The Times

National Youth Orchestra/Jaime Martin
7 January 2020

This was a concert of powerful voices. Quite literally, to start with. Before the 164 instrumentalists of the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) played a note, they stood and sang a workers’ protest, Auf den Strassen zu Singen, by Hanns Eisler. An unexpected opening, but, sung in English, its message of truth and justice rang out.

Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/national-youth-orchestra-jaime-martin-review-few-performances-of-shostakovich-will-top-this-tctq30rpk

London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle
20 January 2020

We’re going to be hearing a lot of Beethoven this year, that’s for sure. As orchestras embark on extensive celebrations for his 250th anniversary, there are bound to be the naysayers who moan that his music has enough airtime already, thank you very much. The London Symphony Orchestra’s opening Beethoven 250 programme was a reminder, however, of what it means to look afresh at music we think we know, and the power of truly paying attention.

Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lso-rattle-review-energetic-beethoven-but-berg-was-revelatory-s2rqh6g6m

Andreas Scholl, Tamar Halperin
27 January 2020

Ancient melody, distant song and soft laments. Lullabies, soliloquies and farewells. Skilfully constructed and exquisitely performed, this “Twilight People” recital charted ambiguous moods, half-states of remembrance and forgetting, places of neither here nor there. The mesmerising beauty of Andreas Scholl’s voice sounded as if from some other world; the pianist Tamar Halperin’s contemplative approach paved the way to it

Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andreas-scholl-review-languid-tempos-allowed-us-to-luxuriate-in-the-sound-h5xqxkptq