Battling on

Greenock postwoman Lynsey Marner-Low could barely walk after she was struck down with coronavirus shortly after holidaying in Milan.

Lynsey Marner-Low and her wife Erin headed to the city for a weekend in early March and returned home just as the virus took hold in Italy.

A few weeks after returning home, Lynsey, who works at Inverclyde Delivery Office, began to feel like she had a bad cold.

Within days, Lynsey gradually began to show symptoms of Covid-19, including extreme fatigue, breathlessness, a high temperature and loss of taste and smell.

She contacted NHS24 and was advised to go for a Covid-19 test at a centre in Maryhill. But as she was so unwell, she waited a day until the testing centre opened in Greenock.

After testing positive for the virus, Lynsey and her wife Erin - who was also showing symptoms by this time – began self-isolating at home.

‘It was absolutely horrendous,’ she told the Greenock Telegraph. ‘It all happened so quickly. I thought I just had a bit of a cold, but then I started to get the high temperature, couldn't taste anything, and I was sleeping day and night.

‘I could barely get up the stairs and I was so breathless. A lot of people have had it so much worse than me, but it was awful.’

Lynsey was off her work for four weeks and during that time, her family dropped off food parcels - but she struggled to eat as she was so unwell.

It took her almost eight weeks to get back on her feet and she still struggles with breathlessness even now.

Lynsey was recognised in the Greenock Telegraph’s ‘Nominate Your Key Worker’ campaign for her dedication to her job, even after her battle with the virus.

According to Lynsey, everyone at Inverclyde Delivery Office deserves to be recognised for their hard work in keeping people connected.

‘It's been quite scary at times,’ she said. ‘When you're dropping parcels off at people's houses, you obviously don't know if they have the virus and I've been worried about whether or not I can catch it again.

‘It's great to be recognised in the key worker campaign. But the whole team at Knowe Road deserves recognition for how they've coped with the increase in parcels. I think we're all doing a great job.’