Out of the Cage

For the past five and a half months I have been living like a hermit.  At the onset of Covid, I was advised to shield by the NHS, because I have a lung condition called sarcoidosis. It was first diagnosed in me about 25 years ago - a persistent cough over a period of 6 weeks led me to a chest x-ray and a diagnosis. It can be quite serious, but my particular symptoms are quite minor and the most annoying one for me is an inability to control my thermostat, which in basic terms means I permanently overheat and wear T-shirts or throw off bed covers when it is snowing outside! The x-rays and CTs I have had over the years confirm my lungs are granulated, so in theory I am vulnerable to Covid. 

The NHS wrote to me to say I should shield myself, avoid all contact with other people and would be able to get priority home deliveries from the supermarkets for groceries. Because of this, my doctor daughter, Kay, who has been working in a hospital Intensive Care ward and therefore right on the front line, moved out into a hotel at the height of the pandemic to protect me.

A few weeks ago, the NHS wrote to me again and said I could now go out, although I had to be careful and still observe two metre distancing and limit the numbers of people I mix with. To start with, I must confess I was quite wary. Four and a bit months shut up indoors with only the occasional solo walk in deserted streets made me feel quite funny when I was allowed out and almost terrified if another person brushed too close, particularly a jogger puffing and wheezing past. I felt as if I was in an alien world, even though it was a world I had hitherto known very well. 

I had also been living entirely on my own, with no stimuli except for the occasional phone call and wall-to-wall TV. When a friend suggested, as lockdown eased, meeting up for a picnic in the park, my first reaction was to say no. She might as well have suggested we commit communal suicide. It felt very unnatural. 

As the weeks have passed, I have gradually abandoned my terror of being struck down by an alien and have ventured out a little more.  At first to a small supermarket at the end of the day when the footfall was quite low. Then a picnic in the park with friends. Last week I reintroduced my weekly walk with a partially-disabled dog-walking friend, whom I take in my car to the park. Now I have made appointments with a hairdresser and the optician. Slowly but surely I am getting back to some kind of normal, although it still seems a bit unnatural and my hesitation is still the first immediate reaction.  I am however conscious that the next wave of Covid is just around the corner and I shall probably be plunged back soon into total isolation again, possibly till Christmas and beyond into 2021. 

Until that happens, I am glad to be out of my cage, for however short a time that may be.