Daniel Harris spoke about his harrowing experience of Covid-19, and 16 days stuck in his bedroom, on this morning's OTB AM.
The football journalist joined Ger and Eoin to discuss the latest in the transfer rumour mill, but spoke openly about what it was like to have coronavirus at home.
"I had coronavirus for the first couple of weeks of lockdown, I wouldn't advise it particularly. I was lucky, it was mild. Mentally it's fairly demanding being stuck in a room for 16 days as it was for me, wondering if you're going to die.
"Apart from that it was okay. For me [the symptoms] were quite mild physically - no nausea, I had fever, did a lot of sweating, a lot of waking up from horrendous fever dreams in the night - looking like I was a vagrant who had gone for a swim in a marsh.
"I didn't feel ill exactly. [I had] headaches, for me anyway it was a lot less unpleasant than flu or Norovirus or anything like that. Being locked in a room for 16 days, not being able to have a shower or anything to eat until someone brought you that stuff was trying.
"The thing with coronavirus is, with most illnesses when you get it, by day two you're as ill as you're going to get... generally you get better. With coronavirus it's light in the beginning, you can be fine for a week and then die, ill for a week and die, or really ill for a week and get better.
"That is quite hard to process. It's unpredicatable, every variety is different. Until you get better and come of the bedroom, you're not really clear of that nagging fear of, 'I'd prefer not to die at this point.'
"Because the physical symptoms [for me] were minor, that was the thing I found most troubling. Because I didn't have any of the tell-tale symptoms, I wasn't quite certain whether or not I'd even had it.
"I didn't have any of the obvious things that are almost unique to this illness, until about two weeks afterwards. There's no particularly polite way of putting this over breakfast... I noticed that I couldn't smell farts or shit.
Baffled by the bitching about those who've taken up running during lockdown. One of the only good things about this awfulness is a whole raft of people getting the physical and mental health benefits of regular exercise, when normally they don't have the time. Encourage them.
— Daniel Harris (@DanielHarris) April 21, 2020
"That is the ultimate in 'he giveth and he taketh away' action obviously because you can't smell other people's but you also can't smell your own.
"That loss of taste and smell is particular to corona, and that made me feel slightly more relaxed about the fact that I had it and wasn't imagining it.
"Physically it takes you a while to get back to where you were. I think I'm now three and a half weeks since I came out of my bedroom... probably still a bit tired.
"Ultimately coronavirus is less fun than home-schooling. My family did manage to avoid getting ill. And that's something else because you're thinking, 'I don't really want to leave my daughter without a father, but also don't want to leave her without her mother or herself.'
"You're having these very peculiar conversations with yourself. You're in a room for 16 days... there's nothing else to do. But yeah, everyone is fine, that was relieving."
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