'I woke from a Covid coma to find my grandad had died and then my dad died days later'

Before Emily Gladwin was diagnosed with coronavirus she was happy and healthy and had her whole family by her side.

But when she tested positive on December 2, it was the start of a "nightmare" for her and her family. The 38-year-old from Resolven would end up in a two-and-a-half week coma and wake up to find that her grandad had died. Then, just days after she was discharged from Morriston Hospital in Swansea, her dad also lost his life.

Despite her heartbreak, Emily wants to raise awareness about happened to her family as well as saying thankyou to the NHS workers who helped them through it.

Emily, who works with autistic adults at the National Autistic Society, said: "I went to work as normal on the Wednesday and had my weekly Covid test in work. I had no symptoms and then my test results came through as positive. I didn't have any symptoms until the weekend, but then I started having trouble with my breathing by the Monday and then by the Tuesday I couldn't breathe and was curled up in a ball on the sofa."

The next day, Emily said her symptoms hadn't subsided, so she decided to call a healthcare professional for advice as she and her family began to get worried.

"I rang up for advice, but they wanted me to come in to check me over," the mum-of-one said. "I went in and they told me my temperature was sky high, I had 10% oxygen levels and that my blood sugar was sky high. I can't really remember much from those two days, then they put me on a ventilator and into an induced coma on December 11 and then I woke up on December 28.

"I wasn't aware that I had any underlying health issues before I went in, but when I was there, they discovered I had type one diabetes (the type of diabetes triggered by an autoimmune response, rather than lifestyle). They don't know if it was always there, or if it started because of Covid. I also ended up having double pneumonia."

Emily said that on the first night she was in her coma, doctors told her husband, Jamie, to prepare for the worst as she might not make it to the next morning. She said her husband was breaking down every night as he and their 14-year-old daughter, Lilia, wondered what might happen to Emily.

However, Emily said she was incredibly lucky because she got stronger and healthier with each day that went by.

"I don't remember anything about being in a coma, but I was having vivid dreams and nightmares which were recurring. They said they were talking to me, reading out letters from my family but I remember none of it. I dreamt my sister had a baby and was convinced it was true," said Emily.

"When I woke up, I was really concerned, I saw these pipes and I thought they were experimenting on me, I didn't have a clue what happened. I asked them if I had missed Christmas and they said yes. Then, my husband was allowed to come down to see me and he told me the sad news that my grampa, Jan Gnojek, had passed away two days before Christmas. We are a close family and usually at Christmas we'd all be together. He was 98 and had been living with cancer for about two years."

As the next week or so went on, Emily's health improved faster than anyone could have hoped for and she was allowed to leave on December 7. But sadly, there was more bad news to come.

"Doctors and nurses were impressed with how quickly I made a recovery," she said. "I was moved to ward G and then went home three days later. I had to relearn to walk again, I started on a zimmer frame in hospital, but then had a stick for just the first few days I was home.

"I came out of hospital on January 7 and then my father, Gareth Williams, passed away on January 9. He was 76 years old and I only got to see him once in that time. He had Covid around the same time as me, but he recovered. He already had fibrosis (lung scarring) though and he died because he developed double pneumonia."

Emily said that what happened to her family caused them all huge stress and upset, but that it had now brought her already close family even closer together.

She said: "We were already close as a family, but this has brought us even closer, we've all pulled together. My mother, Carol, has been through it all, first she lost her father, then she lost her husband and thought she was going to lose me as well. All I can describe it as being is a nightmare, the whole thing feels like a nightmare. As a family, we just want a break. It has been the worst time of our lives and we just hope things can get better"

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Emily said nobody in her family would have coped throughout the ordeal without the fantastic support from the Resolven community, as well as doctors and nurses in Morriston Hospital. She said they went the extra mile to reassure the family despite hospitals being extremely busy around that time. She is now challenging herself to walk up Pen y Fan on June 26 to raise money to say thank you to them. You can support her here.

Though she is back at work full-time and able to go about her daily life, Emily said it would be even more of a challenge for her following her illness. She is working hard to build up her strength through the gym and exercise classes in order to complete the walk.

She said: "I just want to give something back to the hospital. They were brilliant. There was someone with me all the time and they were ringing my family sometimes four times a day. They were letting me video call my family and were constantly getting my family through by reassuring them. The care my father received there was also brilliant, I can't thank staff enough."