A young Limerick mother who was given just days to live after being struck down with COVID-19, has warned others to get fully vaccinated to help curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed over 5,000 lives here.
Jackie Sheehan, (47), was floored by the virus during the third wave in early January 2021, and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
Despite suffering respiratory failure, double pneumonia, as well as life-threatening blood infection Sepsis, the mother of three rallied through after 190 days in hospital.
“It’s so, so serious. I mean, there are people who think this isn’t real, and I think a trip to ICU would definitely open their eyes,” said Ms Sheehan, from Croom, County Limerick.
Ms Sheehan said her sudden hospitalisation last January was “devastating” for her husband Pat and their three daughters Sarah, Lisa, and Ciara.
“Visiting was very restricted but during some of my most critical times my husband was left in to visit. The family were told at one stage on a Thursday in the middle of March that if I was still there on the Saturday, it would be a miracle. But I’m here to tell the tale.”
“I would definitely urge people to get the vaccine. Anyone who isn’t vaccinated won’t be coming anywhere near me, anyway. And that’s a fact, because I’m lucky to be here, you know?.”
Ms Sheehan became well enough to leave critical care at the end of April and was eventually discharged from UHL last May, however her battle against long-Covid was far from over.
Two months of intense rehabilitation at St Ita’s Hospital, Newcastle West followed and she was eventually discharged on July 15th, a full 190 days after her initial admission to UHL.
Despite her relief to be in recovery, “my body, my brain, everything is ready, except for my lungs”, she continues to face “a long recovery” and “will need ongoing physio for my lungs, because it wasn’t looking good for them, to be honest”.
It was only when she was discharged from UHL that she discovered her mother, Mary Fitzgerald, had also been struck down by COVID-19 and was also admitted to the hospital’s High Dependency Unit (HDU).
“Mam was in and out of hospital over this same time. She’d had a serious illness the previous January, and then this year, she got COVID-19 in the other lung, and has been battling since with chest infections. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered she had been in the same hospital as me when I was so seriously ill,” Ms Sheehan said.
After five moths apart, mother and daughter got to within almost touching distance in early May, but still had to keep two meters distance, in UHL’s gymnasium.
It was a bittersweet moment for the two women, who had survived the onslaught of Covid but were still battling its after-effects.
“Oh my God, it was unbelievable…unbelievable, I wouldn’t be able to put it into words, it was just fantastic. It would have been huge for mam as well,” said Ms Sheehan.
“During the time I was sick, and mam wasn’t sick, she still wasn’t allowed to visit me, because she was in the ‘high risk’ category. So even though my family was told that I was not expected to survive, mam still wasn’t able to come in to see me,” she revealed.
They have since reunited.
“We were thrilled,” Ms Sheehan said, “there were tears, tears of joy”.
