It's only flu' left me needing a double lung transplant

Three years ago, I found out the hard way just how crippling the flu can be.

- CLAIRE DAVIES

Before, I was able to go out, enjoy my job as a nurse and meet up with friends for days out. Now I'm mostly homebound and had to give up the career I loved for homeworking because the flu left me needing oxygen permanently. I am also on the waiting list for a double lung transplant, without which I have no idea how long I may have left to live.

With flu, people think, “Oh, it’s just a cold”. But for anyone with a chronic respiratory condition, it is like death.

As a child, I was always in hospital with chest infections, pneumonia and bronchitis. I was six when I was diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans and severe cystic bronchiectasis. I was like a cystic fibrosis patient, really, in terms of infection, so I learnt how to manage my health.

Things evened out from 17 to my early thirties, and I lived a relatively normal life. Despite people telling me what I couldn’t do, I trained as a nurse and worked in A&E for eight years.

When Covid hit, my consultant advised me that I had to shield. I stayed at home for two years. I couldn’t see my friends. I only saw my mum, who was my bubble. It was terrifying, actually. I’d been fighting my whole life, and then we were dealing with something completely new that the world didn’t know about, and we didn’t know how it would affect me.