Lines from the Lockdown
Lines from the Lockdown
Stacey-Rebekka Karlsson - MD @ Goho
I’m writing this from my bed. The sun is shining outside, it’s the 7th of April. It’s 17 degrees.
My company turned one in March, this gorgeous little beast I’ve grown from scratch. We couldn’t celebrate. 23rd March, the day our celebrations were due to start, the UK entered lockdown.
It was my Mum’s birthday last week. I haven’t seen her for months. I’d planned to see her in March, but alas, that wasn’t to be. She’s now on her fourth week without having a day off, she works for the NHS.
A week last Sunday, I came down with a cold. I was sneezing and had a cough and a runny nose. I kept laughing about it and telling the team, “It’s not the Corona cause I’m snotty”. I lost my sense of smell on Tuesday, and by Thursday I couldn’t move from my bed as the exhaustion of just taking a few steps reduced me to a coughing wreck unable to get enough oxygen into my lungs. Even when I was breathing ‘fine’, there was a crackling sound, like I had half a pound of those pop-rock sweets shoved down my throat. If I laid still I was OK. I had a fever and didn’t want to eat anything. I had Coronavirus.
It’s now Tuesday and I’m feeling a million times better. I smell (Ha, I mean I can smell), and I have got my appetite back. My brain is working full speed, my fingers are nimble. I have no fever. The coughing has reduced massively. I have the glorious combo of a garden and PS4 at my disposal, but I haven’t made it down there yet. The stairs feel like Everest right now. I woke up this morning, I have running water, I have clothes to wear, food to eat. Life is good.
My company will turn 2 next year. We will celebrate then. My Mum will have another birthday, she’ll have a day-off eventually. The sun will shine another day, it will be warmer and we WILL all come out of this a better, more caring, kinder bunch.
Everything will be OK in the end, if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.
