A 28-YEAR-OLD CORONAVIRUS patient from Co Kerry has spoken about his three-month-long “nightmare” recovery from the virus.
Michael Prendergast said his ongoing recovery from the disease has been extremely tough, taking nearly 14 weeks to get back to any semblance of normality.
Back in March, Prendergast posted a video from his hospital bed in Kerry University Hospital warning younger people, in particular, to heed the warnings of health officials.
“This is just a warning to anyone out there. I see people at beaches and parks and gyms. If you don’t get affected as bad as I have, I guarantee you that your parents, or your aunts and uncles, or your grandparents are going to be,” Prendergast said in the video.
“This virus is a killer. I just hope that I can raise some awareness and just try and help.”
Speaking to RTÉ’s News at One this afternoon, Prendergast said it has been a long road to recovery but “there’s light at the end of the tunnel”.
Prendergast said he was readmitted to hospital on two occasions after being discharged in March, something he says is “indicative of Covid”.
He said he got some kind of a new symptom that he didn’t have before almost week on week, “whether it would be fatigue, or even a bit of kind of PTSD as well”.
“It lulls you into a false sense of security, that you’re okay now, and then it will come back. All of the same symptoms like high temperature, fever, shaking, vomiting, it all came back. And it’s almost shocking of the severity of which it came back.”
He said he is now feeling “stronger and stronger” each day and is back exercising but knows how lucky he is despite the months of suffering.
“There are people talking online saying ‘it’s just a flu’. It’s not just a flu, and they’ll find that out if they get it,” he added.
At last night’s press briefing, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said that the number of close contacts has been quite large among young people in relation to recent Covid-19 cases.
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