A dad-of-two who was described by doctors as 'one of the sickest Covid patients we’ve ever seen' has finally gone home after spending nearly a year in hospital.
Andrew Watts from Bexley, south London, nearly had his ventilator switched off after he was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital with Covid-19 pneumonia.
The 40-year-old black cab driver fell ill on Christmas Day 2020 and ended up being one of the longest patient stays the hospital in Woolwich has seen.
He spent eight months in intensive care and then two months on a ward which adds up to 300 days in total, MyLondon reports.
After a five-week induced coma and a life-threatening lung collapse, Andrew's health deteriorated to such an extent that in February, doctors called his family to tell them they were considering turning his ventilator off.
Recalling when he first became unwell, Andrew said: "A week before Christmas 2020, I started to feel il.
“I wasn’t eating and I was losing weight, but I thought it was just the anxiety getting to me.
"When I was admitted to hospital with Covid I initially responded well to treatment, but then my oxygen levels started to drop and I was taken for a CT scan. That was when I was told that I had a pneuomothorax, which is a split on the lung.
“I was on my own as this was the height of Covid, with no visitors allowed, so it was a lot to take in.
"By this point I was crying my eyes out, on the phone to my sister Hannah and my wife Hayley, but I didn’t want to tell my mum or my dad. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them.”
After overcoming a second lung collapse, fortunately, Andrew’s lungs begun to improve and he was able to come off the ventilator in June 2021.
Andrew’s family, including his wife Hayley and sons Jack, six, and Joshua, three, were able to visit, although he could only communicate by pointing a stick at letters on a board.
In addition being on a ventilator in ICU for so long meant that Andrew had to learn to talk and walk again.
“I kept thinking ‘why me?’,” he said.
“It was very hard to stay positive. But I remembered how when I was going through my chemotherapy I was told to look forward, set myself little goals and when I’d achieved them set myself another one. So that’s what I did.”
The last two years have been particularly traumatic for Andrew.
He was diagnosed with lymph cancer in October 2019 but chemotherapy treatment had been successful and a few months before his Covid diagnosis, he was in remission and on the mend.
He spent the majority of 2020 carefully shielding due to his cancer fight.
Doctors, nurses, physios and speech and language therapists at the hospital got to know Andrew during his stay.
They all turned out to say goodbye to Andrew on October 21.
Andrew said: “The care has been fantastic but my journey is nowhere near finished yet.
"Going home is one major goal, but then that just starts another road in my recovery.
"I started walking just four weeks ago, and my next goal is to walk to my son’s school and back by Christmas.”
