By 
“YOU can fight this virus and come out the other side.”
The simple, yet powerful, message from Fintona woman, Carmel McKim, who has heaped praise on staff at the South West Acute Hospital for helping to keep her alive as she battled Covid-19.
Now recovering at her home in Lough Muck Meadows after being given the all-clear, the 52-year-old, who suffers from mild asthma, said that the care she received during her two weeks in hospital had been “absolutely unbelievable”.
Mrs McKim said, “I can’t thank them enough for everything they did for me, words cannot express how grateful I am to each and every one of them. My first couple of days were touch-and-go, but thank God I turned a corner.”
With a tear in her eye, she said, “Nothing was too much for them. They don’t get paid anywhere near enough.
“They’re brilliant, that’s all I can say. They kept me alive and I’m very happy for it.”
Mrs McKim said that being told she was being discharged from hospital was “better than winning the Lotto”.
“Money can’t buy your life. You take so much for granted,” she said.
The Fintona woman said she had been feeling unwell in the week prior to her admission to hospital on March 31, but did not suspect she had coronavirus.
At first, she believed she had suffered a reaction to antibiotics she was taking for a spot on her head that had become infected.
As the week wore on, she continued to have a high temperature as well as bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea. Then, several days before going into hospital, she became “a wee bit breathless”.
But she didn’t do anything about it until her sister, who used to be a nurse, said her breathing didn’t sound good and advised her to ring the 111 helpline.
However, Mrs McKim wryly said, “I might as well have phoned the postman. They were useless to be quite honest with you. Their whole conclusion was to phone your GP in the morning.”
And that is exactly what she did. Her GP decided that she needed to go to hospital and, within an hour, an ambulance had arrived to take her to Enniskillen.
Although her memory of her first few days in the SWAH remains hazy, she recalls being taken to the Intensive Care Unit and swabbed to test for the virus.
“I just remember getting hooked up to the wires and machines. That night they put an oxygen mask on me for so many hours. It was very claustrophobic,” she said.
For the next week, the ICU was her new home.
“On the second day, I told them I didn’t want to put the mask on again because of being claustrophobic. They told me that if I didn’t put on the mask they would have to put me to sleep and put me on a ventilator.
“They said it would be very hard to bring me back from that. So I guess I wised up and put on the mask,” she said.
After seven days in the ICU, Mrs McKim was moved to the Covid ward for a further six nights as her condition improved.
Then, on Easter Monday, she was overjoyed to be given the news that she would be going home. It was the same doctor who both admitted and discharged her.
She said, “He told me I had been a very sick woman when he admitted me.”
Mrs McKim was informed that it was going to be a slow recovery and there was no guarantee that her lungs would be back to normal.
Continuing her recuperation at home with her husband Michael, she said, “I am still quite weak and my energy level is definitely not back to normal and probably won’t be for a few weeks yet. Stairs still make me a bit breathless.”
Looking back on her experience, the Fintona woman added, “The important thing is I’m at home and I’m recovering, unlike a lot of people who unfortunately have lost their lives and not been as lucky as me.
“I know that myself and I’m grateful for that.”
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