Care home worker survives COVID-19 and says returning to work is 'lovely'

A care worker from a care home in Kent has revealed how coronavirus gave her “unbearable headaches” and left her needing a walking frame to get to the toilet.

Sue Ferry

Sue Ferry who works at Dene Holm care home in Gravesend has now recovered from the disease and returned to work at the home.

She said: “I was really worried when COVID-19 started to become more serious, as an asthma sufferer, I knew I would be high risk if I caught it, so when I started to feel unwell over the Easter weekend, I was concerned.

“I got home from an evening shift at about 10pm and felt really tired and lethargic. I was coughing a lot, I cough quite a lot anyway as I suffer from asthma, but my husband picked up on this, which was unusual. After taking myself off to bed, it really hit me in the night, the high temperature and the headaches were unbearable.

“I phoned in sick to work and called 111, who advised me to isolate for five days, I could barely get out of bed to get to the toilet, so that was no problem!” A few days later, Ms Ferry tested positive for Covid-19 and continued to isolate but her condition worsened and 111 advised her husband to call an ambulance for her.

“The paramedics wanted me to go to the hospital, but I didn’t want to go, I genuinely thought if I went to hospital, I wouldn’t come back. So, I contacted my GP and arranged to have my observations done safely, as they had a tent set up for safe visiting. Unfortunately, my GP recommended calling an ambulance again and this time, my oxygen was so low, I had to go in. Watching my daughter’s face as we drove away was awful, she was mortified,” revealed Ms Ferry.

She spent the next two weeks in hospital, she had pneumonia, and was put on oxygen as well as IV, as she was unable to eat. With no energy, she was forced to use a walking frame to get to the toilet and had to take morphine for the excruciating headaches. Gradually she started to feel better and was able to go home and is now back at work.

“The recovery was slow, I stayed at home for days, not wanting to go out. But when I returned to work, my team were fantastic. At the start of the pandemic, it felt like care homes were not acknowledged by the government, with regard to PPE and testing, everything took a long time. But now, we have all we need and so I actually felt really safe coming back to work,” she says.

Ms Ferry adds: “Being at Dene Holm actually feels very safe, as we are in our own little bubble. We stopped accepting visitors quickly once the situation started to escalate and the situation with testing is now much better. When we come on shift, we’re given masks, visors, hand gel and we ensure we use it correctly. We all take it very seriously, as we are aware of the risks.

“I have worked at Dene Holm for 16 years and as a team, we’re really pulling together, I received so many well wishes from my colleagues whilst I was off, so it was lovely to be back. We are upbeat, and morale is so much better than it was at the beginning. Of course, we have good days and bad days, but we help each other through, as we’re all in it together.”

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