Well known Enniskillen cleric ather Brian D’Arcy revealed his Covid-19 battle at the weekend telling of how he couldn’t sleep for the coughing and when he did sleep he couldn’t wake up.
D’Arcy also revealed who he felt vulnerable and lonely while thankfully his was only a mild case.
Writing in the Sunday World and Irish Independent at the weekend, Fr Brian wrote: “I caught the Covid virus despite taking every effort to stay safe. When it’s rampant in the community it’s hard to avoid it. Be warned. Be careful.”
Father Brian told of how he was in the same room as someone who had tested positive but masked and socially distancing.
Having only taken a test to rule out the possibility, he was stunned when the test came back positive: “I was utterly shocked though when, 20 hours later, the text pinged on my phone to say I’d tested positive with instructions to immediately isolate for ten days.
“That evening I was shocked by how anxious I became. I have underlying conditions and I’m no longer as young as I think I am. But it knocked me for six.
“I was still feeling OK two days later. I relaxed. Covid isn’t as bad as they say it is, I thought. Then it struck.
“I noticed a terrible taste in my mouth – which three weeks later I still have. I had pains in joints. One night I noticed my toes were discoloured – that really put the wind up me.
“I found it impossible to sleep because when I lay down I couldn’t stop coughing. Then when I did sleep I couldn’t wake.
“I slept through the alarm every morning and when I did wake I just couldn’t get out of bed. Covid flattened me in a manner I never experienced before.
“One night I found it impossible to get to sleep. At 2am I was twisting and turning trying to find a comfortable position to ease the coughing. But I must have drifted off, because when I woke up I was lying face down on the floor of my room having tumbled out of bed.”
The cleric is grateful to have made a recovery from the ordeal.
“From working with the sick over the past six months I am aware that a serious bout of Covid-19 is highly dangerous, maybe fatal.
“I know how difficult it is to predict what effects it will have. As the week progressed I was feeling awful but knew that it was still a mild attack and one that could be controlled with time.
“So I was grateful that I had a mild case of Covid – I’d hate to have a serious bout.”
