From: slider@atashram.com

Struggling to breathe, feeling 'like she was drowning', Dr Geraldine
McGroarty found herself in a bed at the hospital where she worked,
wondering if she would survive Covid-19.

'I just felt so awful, so weak and with a fever of 40c [104f] that wasn't
being controlled,' she recalls of the day she was admitted to the Royal
Free Hospital in London last month.

She had been working there as a locum doctor in A&E, as well as being a surgical registrar at King's College Hospital.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8308955/The-doctor-30-feared-die-coronavirus.html

'Earlier that day at home, my heart rate had shot up threefold and I'd
coughed up what looked like water,' says Geraldine, 30.

The doctor (pictured in hospital bed) had been working at the hospital as
a locum doctor in A&E and was also a surgical registrar at King's College Hospital

'I'd also had an uncomfortable tight feeling in my chest. I wanted to take
deep breaths and couldn't. I was unable to speak much as I was so
breathless.'

Her story is just one being featured in the second part of a BBC2
documentary, Hospital Special: Fighting Covid-19, filmed at the Royal Free during the peak of London's coronavirus crisis.

Following doctors, nurses and managers on the front line in the fight
against the pandemic, the deeply emotional — and in parts harrowing — fly-on-the-wall documentary shows up close the battles patients faced in
their fight for survival, and the huge pressures on staff and beds.

In moving scenes, it shows doctors in tears as they break bad news by
phone to relatives, and desperately-ill patients video-calling their loved ones, not knowing if it will be the last time they see them.

It also shines a light on the frantic hunt for a successful treatment for
the illness. Geraldine is shown gratefully accepting the chance to try a
trial drug, while two other patients turn down the opportunity.

She is the first person to be filmed talking about her experience of
taking the drug for Covid-19 and, as viewers can witness, in her case the effects were near miraculous.

Having feared she may die, within days of taking her first dose, she was
well enough to go home.

It was on April 5, after calling 111 from the London home she shares with
her partner Guy, 32, who works in finance, that Geraldine was rushed by ambulance to the Royal Free with suspected Covid-19.

There, she was given oxygen via a mask. A chest X-ray showed severe
pneumonia affecting Geraldine's left lung and blood tests revealed high
levels of inflammatory markers in her bloodstream, indicating her body was fighting a severe infection.

'I couldn't believe what was happening — it was so scary,' she told Good Health. 'I was young and fit. I play in a rugby team and regularly run
10km.

I'd run one the week before in a time of just 46 minutes. Now, here I was
on a Covid-19 ward wondering if I was going to die or not. I felt so overwhelmed.'

Geraldine had started feeling unwell six days before. At first she had dismissed her symptoms as a case of mild flu.

'I felt achy and very cold at work and went home to self-isolate,' she
says. 'I didn't think it was Covid-19 because I'd worn PPE [personal
protective equipment] when treating patients.

A chest X-ray showed that the doctor had severe pneumonia which was
affecting her left lung and blood tests revealed high levels of
inflammatory markers in her bloodstream

'But I could have come into contact with patients with Covid who had no symptoms who were in hospital for other reasons. Equally, I was travelling
on the Underground and it was packed, so I could have picked it up there.

'I reasoned that if I did have it, it wouldn't be serious as I was young,
fit and had no underlying illness.'

She went to bed hoping to have recovered for her 30th birthday in two
days' time. But on her birthday, she was so weak and breathless she
struggled to speak during a video call with her parents.

She says: 'I ended up going back to bed, feeling too ill to celebrate.'

Four days later, her condition nose-dived. 'I had the sensation that I was drowning and couldn't get out of bed because I was so weak,' she says.

'We called 111 and the paramedics brought me into hospital. It was strange being a patient in the place where I worked and seeing familiar faces.'

She was put straight on to oxygen and a Covid test came back positive.

'A CT scan showed I had virtually no normal lung tissue in my left lung,'
says Geraldine. 'I became quite tearful. I was worried I was going to die.

My biggest worry was that if my breathing didn't improve I'd have to be ventilated. Given what I'd been told by doctors about the survival rate
for ventilation, I didn't want that to happen. I knew there was a real
chance I might not make it.'

The next morning Geraldine got a lucky break when she was asked if she'd
like to take part in a trial for antiviral drug remdesivir, which has previously been used to treat patients with ebola.

It works by stopping viruses replicating and is being looked at for use
against coronavrius because it has been promising in laboratory tests.

But results from trials have been mixed. Data announced on April 29 from
one run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in
the U.S. involving 1,063 Covid patients, found the drug speeded up
recovery time by 31 per cent.

However, results of a trial in China, published in The Lancet last month,
found remdesivir had no benefits over a placebo in seriously ill patients.

Now, larger trials are ongoing. At the Royal Free, 24 patients, including Geraldine, have been treated as part of a global study of 1,000 people.
The results will be published at the end of the month.

The trial compares the outcome of patients given the drug with those who received standard care of antibiotics, fluids and oxygen.

Geraldine says: 'I didn't know much about the drug, but I wanted to give
myself the best chance to fight Covid-19 and survive.'

She started to feel improvements two days later and was able to come off oxygen.

She says: 'It really did turn around quite quickly. I went home only three
days after I was given the drug. I can't say for sure why I suddenly got
better — but I believe it was down to that.'

Dr Sanjay Bhagani, a consultant physician in infectious diseases at the
Royal Free Hospital, who has previously treated patients with ebola and
some of the first Covid-19 patients, was amazed at how well Geraldine
responded to the experimental treatment.

He says: 'It was a really pleasant surprise, I wasn't expecting it. From
the way she presented including her X-rays, CT scans and blood tests, I
thought it would take days before she'd improve, but she did have youth
and fitness on her side.

'Anecdotally, we have found that patients who get the drug in the first
few days in hospital do very well but those patients who are sicker and
need ventilators in intensive care don't do as well.

'With Covid-19, most patients get better in about seven days, but a small number don't and if we can catch that group at this stage before they need intensive care, the drug can be very helpful.'

Dr Bhagani describes the last few weeks as the hardest in his career. He
adds: 'There were times on ward rounds where I'd come across so many sick people and just feel there was nothing else I could do for them, which as
a doctor is the worst feeling.'

However, he says doctors have learnt much in the past few weeks. He adds: 'Although the major manifestation of Covid-19 is in the lungs, it also
affects the kidneys, heart and blood-clotting system, making clots more
likely, so if we are going to tackle it we need to stop replication of the virus and turn off the inflammation caused by the immune system.'

Having been off work for two weeks, Geraldine is back part-time. She still suffers from fatigue and gets out of breath quickly.

'It will probably take months to fully recover from this,' she says.
'Don't underestimate Covid-19 or overestimate how well your body will
fight it off.'

### - boris? boris! you took the remdesivir trumpy sent ya didn't you! eh?
eh??

of course you did! that's prolly why you're still alive!

now where's ours! lol ;)

works better the sooner ya gets it too innit...

so how's about issuing it to all care homes nationwide as a prophylactic
to stop this fucker in its tracks? and/or ditto to everyone over 60 as
that's the group that's being hardest hit!

or are ya saving it all just for doctors & erm, PM's??

too many average people living well beyond the retirement age has been a growing problem here, and even though they've since raised the age of retirement and are talkin' about raising it even higher, the money
currently being paid out by pensions for long 'years' after people have
retired is starting to bankrupt them! so lucky for them this virus came
along when it did then huh?

riiiiiiiiiiiiight....

if everyone refused to go back to work until this remdesivir has been distributed nationwide they'd just 'have' to let us have it?

no chance :)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)