Thread by @AppgCoronavirus

🗣Colin and Rosie Pidgeon
“Rosie did her GCSEs last year, and she was on her second day of school starting her As Levels when she got pinged as a close contact. So we arranged for her to have a test the next day… 1/
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#LongCovid

“Which she had and came back negative and then the day after that she was drinking orange juice in the kitchen and she said ‘Dad, I can’t taste this’. So we booked her in for a second PCR, again it was negative.” 2/

“Given that she had symptoms we figured it was the right thing to do, to keep her off school. She stayed off and did the day 8 test which again was negative. So she’s never tested positive for Covid.” 3/

“During the acute phase she had a couple of days where she felt a bit rough, you know very very mild. I now understand that’s quite common, especially amongst children. She had a bit of a headache, maybe more tired than usual, bit of a temperature for a couple of nights.” 4/

“On the day that she was due to return to school, she was going to get in the shower, and she said I think I’m going to faint and she very nearly did. Subsequently she’s had several fainting episodes. It takes her ages to get out of bed, she has to do it very slowly” 5/

“We’re getting her investigated for a symptom called POTS, which is something to do with her autonomic nervous system is out of kilter. Yesterday she was sitting at the table with me in the kitchen, I work from home so I can look after her, she was sitting with her lunch..” 6/

“And her heart rate was 140, which for a 16 year old girl is not right. She has issues with her heart rate particularly. Like Ravi said, fatigue, the payback from doing anything is excruciating for her.” 7/

“Which is why I was very firm and decided not to bring her on today. She wanted to, she wants to speak for other young people and give them a voice. She was really courageous and did an interview with BBC Northern Ireland and it took her two days to recover from it.” 8/

“I can see Rebecca’s nodding her head, she’s done similar things and she’s one of the people that inspired Rosie. She hurts all over, muscle pain. I can’t pick one thing that’s the most worrying about what’s affecting her. She’s had a headache since the start of September” 9/

“We paid privately to have an MRI of her brain, to try to exclude tumours and lesions and inflammation, that sort of stuff. The most upsetting thing for me is the impact it’s had on her cognitive ability.” 10/

“I said that she’s just done her GCSEs, she got A’s in everything apart from German I think, she got a B in German - she let us down on that one” *Colin chuckles* 11/

“She’s a very bright, articulate young woman, she’s also extremely fit. Or she was. She was a championship Irish dancer, she could keep up a fast, heavy triple jig for 3 and a half, 4 minutes, which is a real intensive workout.” 12/

“And now, she can climb the stairs and she has to sit down at the top of the stairs feeling dizzy and feeling sick.” /END

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