'The Miracle Woman'

'The Miracle Woman'. The name was bestowed on Lorrha woman Rose Mannion by medical staff at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, because it's a miracle that she's still alive after her brush with death due to contracting Covid-19.

Rose (66), the camogie correspondent for The Guardian, battled for her life for over two months and managed, somehow, to survive - despite times of almost hopeless omens.

Her recovery was remarkable - miraculous some have said. And that is why it was such a big day when she finally got to a stage where she was deemed fit enough to leave Portiuncula.

GRAVELY ILL

Staff and other patients of the Ballinasloe hospital, aware of how gravely ill she was and how she had fought back from the brink, lined the corridors to cheer and clap as Rose, Covid-free, was wheeled out of the building on a stretcher at the end of June to undergo rehabilitative care in Limerick.

"Sure they had called me 'The Miracle Woman'," says Rose, speaking to The Guardian from the Intermediate Care Facility - set up earlier this year at the University of Limerick for the rehabilitation of coronavirus victims - as she recounted the 81 days she spent in intensive care.

 

HELL AND BACK
Rose's journey to what seems like hell and back started in the last week of March when she developed a cough and a sore throat. Covid was the last thing she thought about as she had been isolating with her husband, Liam at the time.

"Because I'm an asthmatic having a sore throat and a cough were nothing new to me because that is how my asthma presents itself," Rose revealed.

She went and got antibiotics and did her shopping to stock up her shelves, anticipating she might have to stay home for a period due to what she thought was the onset of one of her intermittent asthma attacks.
As for what happened after that, Rose remembers absolutely nothing. "Everything is gone from my life after that as far as my memory is concerned," she says.

"My husband, Liam, tells me I was in good form and that I spoke to the doctor on the phone, but I have no memory of that. The doctor was trying to get an ambulance, but the ambulance was going to take three hours and the doctor said that was too long and asked Liam if he could take me to hospital."

 

Rose was brought to Portiuncula by her husband on March 28th. "I think it was the following day that things got really bad, but I have no memory of that. It's all a blank," says Rose.

 

The virus had a rapid impact and her health quickly deteriorated. "My kidneys failed and I had to have dialysis? I also got a clot on my lung, and then things just escalated from there."

 

Rose was not long in Portiuncula before she was transferred for intensive care to Galway University Hospital where she spent the best part of a month before being transferred back to Portiuncula again to its intensive care unit.

 

STRENGTH TO SURVIVE

There were periods where Rose became so ill that there was speculation on whether she had the strength to survive. "There were times when people maybe gave up on me, or whatever. One female doctor told me later that when others gave up she said to herself, 'no, you're still alive; let's keep on working.' So they worked hard to get me around."

 

As she could not breathe for herself she was put on a ventilator. For two whole months medics kept her on that machine to keep her alive. After her 81 days in intensive care, Rose was transferred to a ward where she spent a further ten days, before being sent on to Limerick where she is currently undergoing rehabilitation since June 26th in the Intermediate Care Facility at UL.

 

Rose says the worst and most challenging time for her was when she finally woke up from an induced coma and realised the dreadful impact the virus had had on her system. "Everything just broke down on me," she recalls. "I had no speech, no hearing, no eyesight and no swallow. It was an awful, black time.

 

"You just didn't want to live. I was saying to myself, 'I just can't handle this.' That was what was going on in my head because I thought I was paralyzed?

 

"Immediately after I woke up I was angry. My illness put a lot of anger in me. I was angry at the medical staff for bringing me back. I was angry with my family for fighting to save my life as well, because I thought to myself, 'I can't live with this; I have always been am an active person. I was very confused about the whole thing."

 

STEEP MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB

It seems the negative thoughts Rose was experiencing were a perfectly natural reaction for one who had been through such a massive trauma. But at this stage of her recovery she is now looking forward to, hopefully, returning to full health again. Yet, Rose still has a considerably steep mountain to climb due to the persistent effects that Covid-19 has had on her.

 

"It's such a nasty virus. It seems to affect people in many different ways," she says (her husband, for instance, contracted the virus around the same time, yet experienced far milder symptoms).

 

Says Rose: "It's one thing having the virus and it's another thing afterwards with the complications it leaves behind. It just does not stop once you leave hospital, because the fatigue and the tiredness are overwhelming. It can knock you flat for days on end.

 

"There are breakdowns in the body that I would never have expected. I'm still wide open to all infections at this stage, because my whole system broke down on me and I now have to build everything back up.

 

"My lungs are damaged and I can't walk unaided at the moment. My asthma has escalated and I will have to undergo voice training because my vocal chords were damaged. Luckily enough, my eyesight, my hearing and my swallow have come back, thank God. But because I'm an asthmatic my progress will be much slower."

 

Rose says she will be forever grateful to the medical staff who care for her. Nor will she forget the care shown by her family, neighbours, friends and so many other people who supported her during the most testing of times.

 

"My husband Liam (a semi-retired carpenter) has been there for me all the time and my neighbours have been a great support to both him and me. I can't be thankful enough for what everyone has done. I'm overwhelmed at the amount of good wishes that I have received from people all over the country. That they have remembered me is a lovely comfort and a great support."

 

Rose, a mother of two adult children, a son, Ruadhan, and daughter, Ann Marie, and a grandmother to Finn (6) and Penny (3), is the Lorrha correspondent for both The Guardian and The Midland Tribune. She also writes camogie related reports and news stories and takes photographs for both papers, a multi-tasking role to which she ultimately hopes to return.

 

Despite the terrible ordeal that she has been through, she is being positive about the way things have turned out for her.

 

"I was one of the luckier ones to survive - a lot didn't," she says. "Even a lot of the younger ones didn't. So, I suppose I'm lucky."