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Michael Rosen, the children’s author, poet, broadcaster and former UK children’s laureate, spent 48 days in intensive care after contracting Covid-19 a year ago. This is an extract from Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS, his new collection of prose poems, which attempts to make sense of that time.
Day 12. The year’s seasons roll by in a night: sweats, freezes, sweats, freezes. Wondered whose mouth I had: I didn’t remember it as made of sandpaper. Water is as good as ever. Tweet from @MichaelRosenYes, March 27th, 2020
Feeling Unwell
Get tested, says my friend John. The GP has closed. A recorded message at the surgery says to not come in and not go to A and E. If you think you might have Covid-19, call 111, it says. I call 111. I get through to the ambulance service and talk to a man who asks me some questions. No, I’m not coughing, I say. No, I don’t feel worse today than I felt yesterday. He tells me to keep taking the paracetamol and ibuprofen. I do. In the spare room at home I say to Emma it feels like I can’t get enough air. There isn’t enough air. “I can’t catch up,” I say. There are moments I feel hotter than I’ve ever felt before and moments when I am colder than ever before. I shudder as if I am naked out of doors. We look at the instructions: Don’t call the GP. Don’t visit the GP. Don’t go to A and E. Ring the ambulance service. I get through. He asks me if I’m feeling worse than yesterday. No. He asks me if I’m coughing. No. He says he thinks I’m fine. Keep taking the paracetamol and Nurofen. There isn’t enough air. I can’t catch up. The doorbell rings. Emma has asked our friend, a neighbour who is a GP, to visit. She gives Emma a contraption to check if I’m absorbing oxygen and waits outside on the doorstep. Emma hands it back to her. She calls out: “You have to go to A and E right now,” she says. “I can’t really walk,” I say, “I get the shakes just going to the loo.” “You have to go now,” she says, “bump downstairs on your bum,” she says, “I’ll ring them to tell them you’re coming,” she says. Emma drives me to A and E I am panting. It’s night. The road is empty. The moment I go in I am surrounded with people in masks. They put an oxygen mask over my face.
Messages from Emma to Michael
April 5th, 10.31am It’s a beautiful sunny morning. Today is Sunday, day nine – you have got yourself through eight days and nights Mick – I know how uncomfortable and scary that has been – but you have done it – brilliant – keep calm and keep taking it v slowly. There is NO RUSH – we r not going anywhere! Xxx Love e x
Just spoke to nurse v quickly. She said you r stable, calm and just having a wash – they had to increase your levels last night by the sound of it, but it also sounds like you have settled again this morning. These nights r very hard Mick, I know. Xxx e xxx
6.52pm Dr told me you are all stable again and that you look better today – that you have been in a different position on your tummy which is helping. And you’ve been having something to eat. This all sounds v like progress to me & I want you to be encouraged and feel reassured that although it may feel v slow going & v hard work, you r going in the right direction. Melon fruit cocktail and Tango on its way tomorrow. Lots of love e xxxx
7.58pm You know the shit has hit the fan when the queen is making a speech and it’s not even Christmas . . . Xxx
In the early hours of Monday, April 6th, a doctor rang Emma to say that they were going to re-admit Michael to intensive care and place him in an induced coma on a ventilator, and that he had agreed to this.
April 6th, 0.52am We love you so much – have a good rest now and we’ll see you very soon love you xxx e xxx
A doctor is standing by my bed asking me if I would sign a piece of paper which would allow them to put me to sleep and pump air into my lungs. “Will I wake up?” “There’s a 50:50 chance.” “If I say no?” I say. “Zero.” And I sign.
Recovery
Very poorly. It’s something they say about me. Every so often a doctor or nurse stands by my bed and says, “You were very poorly.” I’m starting to expect it. They often seem pleased – surprised almost – that I’m less poorly. I get the feeling that some people who were very poorly, died. I didn’t die. __________ I chew over the word “liminal” and remember how in the class I teach at university we talked about how portals in fantasy stories are “liminal”, a space or moment “in between worlds” or on the edge of one world but not quite in another, where things are transient, temporary or provisional but it can be a moment full of promise or it can be a moment of anxiety or danger: think the Alice books, Alice going down the rabbit hole, and through a looking glass. Or sitting in the waiting area at an airport. I think of a train journey to a summer camping holiday when I was eight years old, with the land one side and the sea on the other. I start to believe the edges of my body are liminal, they are touching other worlds, sheets, blankets, the bed, the “fence” on the side of the bed, the pillows and it is all this that stops me sleeping: they are all edges. So I bring my hand up to my face and put it under my cheek. It feels like I’ve found myself something that’s not on an edge and I’m back with me. I sleep well that night. __________ The ward is dark. I can hear a metal purr from the other side, then a bubbling syrup. He coughs. More bubbling. It must be coming up from his chest. The metal purr must be sucking it up. A light is on behind the curtains over there. The nurse tells him to keep still.
Rehab
They’ve been worried about my low blood pressure but they’ve brought me the Daily Mail so it’ll be fine in just a moment. __________ I try to walk to the loo without using Sticky McStickstick. I stagger. I think of: M People, Heather Small: I sing to myself “Search for the hero inside yourself.” When I get there I sit on the loo wondering how many people have sung, “Search for the hero inside yourself”, to get themselves to the loo.
Going Home
I’m a traveller who reached the Land of the Dead. I broke the rule that said I had to stay. I crossed back over the water, I dodged the guard dog, I came out. I’ve returned. I wander about. I left some things down there. It took bits of me as prisoner: an ear and an eye. hey’re waiting for me to come back. The ear is listening. The eye is the lookout. __________ Two physios come over. They ask me to walk across the room. They say that’s very good. They ask me to push my legs against their hands. They say that’s very good. One of them asks me what are my long-term objectives. I stop and think. What are my long-term objectives? Do I have long-term objectives? Should I have long-term objectives? I would like to write a book about a French dog called Gaston le Dog. I don’t say that. I say that I would like to be able to walk to the Jewish deli on the corner and wheel the shopping back in our trolley. The physio smiles. She writes it down in her book. I’m trying to say that going shopping and bringing it back seems huge, much bigger than anything I can do now. It feels like a long-term objective. Anything else? she says. Live for a bit more? I think, and I’ve never bothered to pickle cucumbers, I just buy them, but my mother made lovely pickled cucumbers, I would like to try that one day. You’re doing very well, they say. __________ I am not who I was. I am who I was. This is not me. This is me. I am now the person who had Covid: the thing that came in March. I am now the person who disappeared in April and May. I am now the person who peers into the mirror hoping his left eye will see what the right eye sees, catching a glimpse of the blackness of the big pupil looking back at me in hope. I am now the person who hears the telephonic trebly sound through the hearing aid in his left ear that makes the sound of a kettle boiling into scream. I am now the person who is alert to every twinge or mark anywhere on me. I am getting to know this person. This is not me This is me
 Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS by Michael Rosen is published by Ebury – Guardian