2020-03-24 Day 2 - About Bolly Twelve Weekers and how we feel at The Beginning

Bolly  = our home town of Bollington in East Cheshire, England

Tweekers = Twelve Weekers: the initial 12 weeks at home for the Coronavirus 'shielding group'

We are wife and husband Fiona (Bolly Archive) in the shielding group and Tom in the at greater risk group.  We are hiding ourselves away for 12 weeks to protect the NHS ICU capacity to save lives.

How do we feel at The Beginning?

Tom

I feel we are well prepared, we have been metaphorically battening down the hatches and furling up the sails for a week or so.  We have moved more into a routine where we are together, rather than doing our own thing quite a lot of the time.  We make a good team.

I'll keep in mind the message of the header image that has been over our bed since we were married, it was a gift from my fearsome great aunt, the artist and printmaker Peggy Angus.  Fiona met Peggy once, 40 years ago, when Peggy was in an NHS hospital.  I was an inpatient myself in an NHS hospital 50 years ago, I did not understand at the time, but without the operations I had then my life would have been different for the worse.  Being a child alone in hospital was a terrible and frightening experience, it was too far away for family visits, our family had no telephone then.  I do not like the hospital experience, but I love what hospitals do and have done for us and I love the NHS.

There are mental and physical challenges and I think saying something about those and strategies for dealing with them I'll save for another post.  Actually I have set myself a rather bizarre physical challenge that requires quite a lot of training.  At dark times I may imagine we are on the beach of a deserted tropical island, castaways, with hair to match.  Fiona says she would have a monkey tame enough to climb trees and fetch coconuts for us. Humour is important and mine is sometimes rather black:  if I'm on a ventilator and am fading fast I hope it's one of those Formula 1 ventilators as I want to go quickly.

Fiona

March 23rd I get 'the text'.

Not a surprise, as reports of it arriving had been pinging in all morning on the AIH Facebook group I joint admin.  Up to this point, I had continued to walk my 2 Cinnamon Trust dogs, following guidance from the Trust.  The risk was small, but with multiple carers going into the owner's house, touching front gate, door handles etc.  However careful I was being, the risk was still there.  The text took the decision out of my hands, dog walking suspended.  Staying in oddly makes me feel safe not trapped.  With the chronic fatigue, I'm already good at doing very little.  Avoiding doing less is my goal.  This morning, a friend who also got 'the text' and I connected 'virtually' to watch the Joe Wickes kids exercise video on YouTube.  I only did the warm up as it's quite hard going, Rachel is super fit, a RatRace adventure runner, (Google Rat Race and be awed) and even she said it was 'hard'.  Agreeing to meet virtually and do this daily will motivate more than doing it alone.  Now the sun is out, our first seeds are sprouting, and Tom released a butterfly from the garden shed. Onwards and upwards.