A 44-year-old healthcare worker who contracted Covid-19 in March has warned others not to underestimate the virus.

A 44-year-old healthcare worker who contracted Covid-19 in March has warned others not to underestimate the virus.
Sinead Sheerin first experienced symptoms at the end of March.
Six months on, she is still not back to work.
The Dubliner, who works in a hospital, initially thought she had a sinus infection. But she woke up one morning with no taste or smell. She tested positive on 6 April.
At first, she had trouble breathing, fatigue, nausea, headache and a high temperature.
But after two-and-a-half weeks, when she was considering going back to work, she started having trouble breathing again. She also experienced heart palpitations.
She was brought to hospital and they admitted her. She had chest pain and palpitations and was hospitalised for eight days.
Ongoing symptoms
Sinead Sheerin said she has been struggling ever since. She still has no taste or smell, she has fatigue, a chesty cough and a pain in her lung. She also experiences brain fog.
Day-to-day life is very hard, she said. A good day for her is getting up, getting dressed, and getting some lunch ready for her children. On a bad day, which she describes as her ‘zombie’ days, she said she just can’t move. If she does something one day, she said she is “floored” the following day and has to just sit down.
Out of work
She said she did not expect to be hit so badly by the virus. She was optimistic, and believed that when she got the virus she would be able to recover after two weeks and get back to work quickly. But, she said, that never happened.
Instead, she is still out of work six months on. She is doing physiotherapy twice a week, trying to concentrate on her breathing.
But she said the whole thing is very frustrating, hard, and upsetting. It has taken a toll on her family life.
She said her children and husband have been great looking after her, but they have been very worried about her.
The situation does get her down sometimes, she said. But she just hopes that each day ahead will be a good day.
No underlying conditions
Sinead Sheerin said she has no underlying conditions. Before this, she said she was fit.
She worked full-time and was in college in the evenings.
She hopes to get back to normal, but she doesn’t know what that normal is going to be.
But, she said, she tries to take each day as it comes.
She has urged people not to underestimate the virus. She said she was very naive, thinking she would be back to work in two to three weeks, that everything would be fine and it was “just like the flu”.
But she said it is not a flu, and she had never experienced anything like this before.
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