February 2020. Lea Kant is watching television in Nieuwendijk on Friday evening, when she suddenly gets terribly stuffy. A cold, the doctor first thinks, but not long after, Lea ends up in the hospital as one of the first corona patients in the Netherlands.
Corona, we had never heard of it. A strange virus on the other side of the world, something contagious, and in the news we saw how Chinese in Wuhan walked around with mouth caps in front of the face.
When Minister Bruins announced during a live broadcast on TV that the first coronabes infection in the Netherlands had been established, Lea was already in intensive care with a double pneumonia for a week.
The doctors did not know what was going on with her, but she became sicker and sicker. It was decided to put her to sleep, after which she was transferred to the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. “In Rotterdam they finally tested me and then they found out that I had Corona,” says 54-year-old Lea.
“It was an ink -black period with a lot of sadness, especially for my husband,” she looks back. “He was told that he had to say goodbye to me because they didn’t know if I would be added.”
For six weeks, Lea was in an artificial coma, while the virus pulled through her body like an unwanted invasion. When she recovered, she heard about the nursing what had happened and that the whole country was locked because of the coronavirus. “I felt it was my fault,” she says. “I turned out to have lit others, also my husband and my mother -in -law. Many people died around me. It was terrible.”
Lea’s husband and a good friend kept every day in a booklet how she was doing. “As a result, I know afterwards what happened and how close I was shaped along the abyss.”
The bed in the hospital was exchanged for the rehabilitation center. “I couldn’t do anything at all. Only my right hand could still move, that was everything. I had to learn to stand and walk again.”
Lea never came over the virus. “Before I got Corona, I was already suffering from rheumatism. Together that I am less mobile.” She runs difficult, is short of breath and stuffy. “Small pieces is still possible, but then my lungs start to play.”
In the past she liked to go out with her husband during vacations. Walking, enjoying the natural beauty. “I still miss that. Now I do pretty much everything with a mobility scooter.”
“My memory, there is no improvement in that.”
What she is still struggling with every day is her mental condition. “My memory is no longer what it has been. In the short term, I actually lose again,” she says with a soft look. “There is no improvement in that, there is no therapy for that.”
You can find weekly at the physio, where she does medical fitness. The physiotherapist guides her with the exercises and make sure that she breathes well.
Things no longer go from a slate roof. Making big plans and moving mountains, that is over for good. But there are still small things, and that is precisely where the beauty is in for her. “It’s going well, but with limitations. Yet I see the future with a smile, together with my husband and our dog and cat.”
In the series ‘Corona five years later’ we look back with Brabant those involved at the impact of the pandemic.