I know there are footballers out there who are reluctant to get the Covid vaccine. And I understand why. I was one of those who just hadn’t got round to it. But reflecting on that now, I really can’t believe how stupid I was and the experiences I’ve been through in the past six weeks, which have put an awful strain on myself and, more importantly, my family.
Just six weeks ago I was feeling like I was on the point of death, collapsing in hospital and having to be rescued by nurses. I was reduced to a shadow of myself, all because I hadn’t got round to doing something potentially life-saving.
It was pure stupidity on my part. I’m not an anti-vaxxer and I fully intended to get round to having the jab. And I have had my first jab now. But, being busy with pre-season training at Chester, it was just bottom of my priority list. That’s the best way of describing it. I’d had Covid last year, so I thought I couldn’t get it again. And I’m 38, fit and healthy. So I reckoned there really was very little risk. It just didn’t seem that important.
I felt like I was on the point of death after being hospitalised with Covid-19 this summer
How mad is that? Basically I was saying that living and being healthy was bottom of my priority list! Taking training, work meetings, picking the kids up were higher priorities than staying alive. It’s almost like I had to stick my hand in the fire to realise how hot it was. And the reason why I’m happy to talk about it now is to urge footballers who haven’t had the jab: just do it.
At the beginning of the summer, I tested positive for Covid, which surprised me as I’d had it before, though looking back, I guess that was a different variant to the current Delta one. I was isolating but after a week, I wasn’t improving. In fact, I was getting worse, which is when my wife called an ambulance.
Even then, I hadn’t really grasped the seriousness of it. As the paramedics were coming into my bedroom, I could hear them reassuring my wife and telling her that with younger people, they tend to leave them at home to recover. Then they took my blood oxygen levels and as soon as they did, you saw them looking at each other, thinking: ‘We’ve got to get him in.’
I said I’d walk to the ambulance but because I’d been laid up for several days, I collapsed. When I came to, we were in the car park outside the hospital. It was the week of the heatwave and 30 degrees outside. We were there for three or four hours, waiting to be admitted and those hours were the worst of my life.
My temperature was 42 degrees and I was sweating and shivering. It was like being in an oven. I just felt as though I wanted to go to sleep and not
