I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW- COVID DIARIES 3 PART 1

If you are a reader who also follows my YouTube channels, you may know that last year, (2020) on the very first weekend of the “confinamiento” in Spain due to Covid 19, in March, I had a little accident.

I was washing my hair in the shower (one of those showers that go into a bath) and I slipped on some conditioner. fell. and banged my eye on the side of the bath.

I banged it so hard I gave myself a lovely big black eye that can be seen clearly on the videos I made around that time. I actually think I broke my nose as I have a little dent next to the eye socket. I have never washed my hair in the shower since!!

I did not go to the doctors or the hospital although I am sure I had concussion.

Covid was rife, hospitals were full, and what would they do anyway?

The black eye faded, I survived, and as time went on I practically forgot about it though as I say I was extra careful in the shower ever since. Time went on, and in September classroom classes restarted and things started to get a little more back to normal. I spent a lot of time on the computer finishing off a few book projects and updating my Break The Language Barrier series. My right eye started to feel a little tired, and I started to notice a slight blurriness of vision.

Being one of those people that is absolutely useless at going to the doctors, I put it down to eye strain and waited for it to improve, resting my eyes as often as possible.

It didn´t..

Increasingly I felt I was viewing the world from this eye through frosted glass, though luckily for me the vision in my other eye was very good so I could function perfectly well. As Christmas approached, I gave up thinking it would improve and contacted my doctor who immediately made me an appointment with the eye specialist. By now I was panicking as I suffer from high blood sugar which I was not controlling well, and I was starting to think maybe it was connected with this.

I also wondered about the bang I had given my eye, had I detached my retina or anything similar? As we know, Google is great in some ways but can also give you sleepless nights!! I turned up for my appointment very concerned.

The young girl I saw on the first appointment was lovely though seemed about 12. A sure sign of old age when doctors and policemen start to look like children. She started off by saying it was probably related to the fall, couldn´t be a cataract as they came on very slowly not so quickly, then on further investigation saw that, ah yes, it was a cataract in fact.

I was absolutely gobsmacked. Moi? A cataract? Only old people have cataracts. Ah hang on, I will be 60 soon, how the hell did that happen?

The nice girl told me that trauma to the eye can in fact cause or accelerate a cataract, but the good news was it was easy to remove. I was given another appointment where the cataract was confirmed and the process began leading to an operation.

Google was quite reassuring in success rate of cataract surgery so I duly went along for my blood test and cardiogram. Apart from the fact that my blood sugar was wildly out of control (that´s another story- now controlled) I was fit to go from February and told to wait for the call for a Covid test to be followed shortly by an operation date.

In the meantime Covid (are you as fed up as I am of that word?) had taken hold again here and we were again under restrictions, with hospitals full again. A couple of months rolled by with no news, but to be honest it was not getting any worse and I had learned to live with it. As my other eye was fine it really didn´t affect my normal life and I wasn´t looking forward to the prospect of surgery being a complete wuss.

The more I started to contemplate the fact that I was going to actually have surgery on my EYE the more terrified I became. Perhaps it would be better if they just forgot about me, what did I need two good eyes for when I was coping well one?

Eventually I did call as things started to open up again and was told yes, all good, wouldn´t be long. Bloody brilliant.

By then Spain was getting on with the vaccine rollout, so I was happy to wait as in my eyes ( pardon the pun) they had so many more important things to do. I put it to the back of my mind and just got on with enjoying our new freedoms as restrictions lifted bit by bit.

Then last week, it all happened…

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you are a Spanish student yourself you may find the following links useful:

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COVID-19 DIARIES- 1- How it all started

The world has changed forever.

I think what took us all most by surprise was the speed it happened.

It felt like one minute it was just lurking in the background as a particularly Chinese problem, so nothing really for us in Europe to worry about, then it was here affecting all of us and life would never be the same…

For some people, life would end, in a horrible and lonely way. Others would survive, but after weeks of illness with loved ones having to care for them alone and unsupported due to the infectiousness of it.

Meanwhile, selfish and ignorant people would flout all the rules, not really taking it seriously if they had not been personally affected.

In the “el confinemiento” here in Spain, I think we all went a little crazy in the end.

These next couple of blogs will be my experiences.

The first confirmed case of Covid- 19 in Spain was on the 31st January 2020, when a German tourist tested positive in the Canary Islands. By 13th March, cases had been confirmed in all 50 provinces of our country. Concentrated mainly in Madrid, by the 25th of March the death toll had surpassed China ( reported cases at least).

On the 2nd of  April, 950 people died in Spain of the virus in a 24-hour period—at the time, the most by any country in a single day.

In my area we were sort of aware of what was going on, but we felt it was mainly in Madrid so it didn´t feel real to us I I think. A far- away problem that we didn´t really need to worry about.

When I look back now at one particular student describing her husbands symptoms as he was ill with “some sort of chest infection he couldn´t shake off” , I am more or less certain it had already arrived here.

Thursday 12th March started like any other day. Classes began as normal. Then Lis, my teachers assistant, casually mentioned that she had gone shopping to the local supermarket the night before and there was NOTHING on the shelves. Literally nothing. No pasta, no fresh food, no frozen food, NADA. She told me that many people had arrived to their second homes here on the coast from Madrid to escape the virus, and were stocking up.

That was the start of the madness. The next day off I went to my supermarket for my normal weekly shop. There was NOTHING. All that was left was one pack of chicken feet which I thought I could probably live without.

Luckily for me, as I have transport, I went to a lesser used supermarket and was able to get what I needed. The temptation to stockpile is infectious, but the Spanish President had guaranteed the supply of food so I knew we did not have to do this. Unfortunately other people did not see it in that way, there are many greedy selfish people out there only thinking of themselves and causing problems for everyone.

That Friday, some costal towns were curfewed by the police as they realised the selfish madrileños had come to their second homes and brought more of the virus with them. That is my one criticism of the Spanish Government, Madrid should have been locked down sooner before people could leave to spread it.

By Saturday 14th March, we were all in “confiimiento” as the lockdown began and an “estado de alarma” was declared. I chose that very morning to slip in the shower on some hair conditioner and most likely fracture my nose/ cheekbone and maybe break a little bone in my foot. I decided I would not go anywhere near a hospital under the circumstances and I just hope now they have repaired themselves ok.

By then I had watched a couple of YouTube videos about the virus in China and I was absolutely terrified.

You know when you wish you could unsee something.

So I developed a nice black eye and decided I would no longer be washing my hair in the shower.

We had all said goodbye and see you Monday that Thursday morning not knowing that in the space of just a couple of days everything was going to change..

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