Victory! Dónal home after 71-day battle with Covid-19

(Above) Dónal Lawlor with staff from the rehab unit at St Mary’s.

A senior Westmeath sporting figure has spoken movingly of the support from the community, her family and the medical profession that got her and her husband through his gruelling 71-day hospital battle against the dreaded Covid-19 coronavirus.

“He is actually a miracle,” says Aileen Lawlor, former president of the Camogie Association, who finally got to welcome husband Dónal back to their home in Irishtown last Friday after his ordeal.

The retired managing director of Trend Technologies, Dónal was admitted to hospital on March 19 – and terrifyingly, within four hours he was on a ventilator.

He spent 32 days on a ventilator during his 39-day stay in the ICU. There then followed a week in a medical ward and 24 days in rehabilitation, before finally getting the all clear.

That was a time in Aileen’s life like no other: due to the restrictions, she was unable to visit her husband, but she was overwhelmed by the kindness of the community, her friends and family – and the many people who were actively praying for Dónal despite some of them not knowing him personally. She has paid tribute too to all the medical professionals that helped Dónal on his journey back to health.

“It’s been a long journey for him; it was difficult,” says Aileen, going on to describe how on paper, Dónal should not have been so seriously affected by the virus: “He doesn’t have any underlying health conditions; he walks, he cycles. He took early retirement nearly two years ago – just because of the timeframe, not because of any other reason – and he was fit and healthy. In fact that’s what the doctors reckon got him through it.”

To say “he walks and he cycles” is in fact to understate the extent of Dónal’s energy and activity levels: he and Aileen have been journeying to Spain over the last three years to walk the Camino and they have covered over 400 kilometres.

But when he contracted Covid-19, Dónal’s case was particularly severe: the virus affected both his lungs: “Whatever way it hit him, it hit him really, really badly,” says Aileen.

At the start, neither Dónal nor Aileen suspected that he was going to be one of the unlucky ones and face into a long and arduous battle to recover from Covid-19.

“It was quite the mystery. He was sick here at home but he was weathering it: he didn’t have all the classic signs. But it’s a learning curve, and we all know now that you don’t have to have all the classic signs,” says Aideen, recalling those days in early March when Dónal first became unwell.

“He wasn’t in any respiratory distress – which is the one thing they say you need to go to hospital with.

“The main thing was that he had the high temperature.

“I had been chatting with the GP because his temperature was high but he wasn’t in respiratory distress, and that seems to be the trigger that leads people to go to hospital.

“However things did change slightly at one stage and while he was still fine, he did say there was a slight change. But I’m a nurse and I felt concerned that while he wasn’t really getting any worse, he wasn’t getting any better either.”

After consultation with the family GP, the decision was made to refer Dónal for assessment – and it was decided he should be hospitalised.

“He went down very fast. He walked into the hospital; he was talking to me in A&E,” says Aileen.

Dramatically, within four hours, Dónal was on a ventilator and that marked the start of a very trying period in the couple’s lives: “It was quite difficult, because obviously there is no visiting,” she points out.

In fact, Aileen was not able to see Dónal at all during the long spell when he was on a ventilator and in ICU. When he was finally admitted to rehabilitation, she was then allowed to speak with him through a glass door: “It was 48 days before I was allowed to see him, and there was no personal contact until his discharge 71 days later.”

She sent him letters every day for the nurses to read to him, and he has since said that while asleep, he was aware of having the letters read to him.

It was a lonely and a worrying time for Aileen – but thanks to the computer programme Zoom she was able to have daily face-to-face contact with her four children, three of whom live outside of the country, and one of whom is away studying.

“It was very difficult for me and very difficult for them,” says Aileen, recounting the difficulty in piecing piece together a picture of how Dónal was doing without getting to see him physically during all that time.

Naturally, she was able to obtain daily updates from the hospital but she did not want to place an added burden on the frontline staff by ringing them too often.

At the same time because of the need to isolate no one could call to Aileen’s home, and largely she could not leave.

As a native of Dublin she has no close family based in Mullingar as such, but admits she found herself overwhelmed by the sense of community that was shown to her by those who knew of the family’s situation, and she pays especial tribute to her neighbours for their concern and kindness over those difficult weeks: “They were leaving things at my front door, ringing the bell and then going away, leaving food, leaving shopping – anything I needed.”

In an immense compliment to her community she states succinctly: “My neighbours were my family.”

That’s not taking from the support she received from her family and Dónal’s family, but the restrictions in place meant they were helpless to provide that sort of everyday assistance that the neighbours did provide.

“I can’t thank people enough for what they’ve been doing.

“Also as a nurse myself I’ve never been so proud of my profession: They are putting themselves at risk as well – and if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have had my husband coming home to me,” she says, adding that in her thanks she includes also the doctors and rehab staff and all others involved.

Aileen is also grateful to the many people who had prayed for Dónal lots of whom had never even actually met him but who were friends of family or friends of friends. Knowing so many people were praying for him, and giving her support in this fashion, gave her great strength she says.

“The community spirit, my friends and family – at a distance, and the neighbourhood. It’s just incredible the strength that people can give you in their kindness,” she says.

“You think you can do nothing but there’s always something even if it’s just a text.

“We have both such a network of friends – I’m involved in sports, and I’ve had national roles, so as you can imagine I had contact from here and from America and from other places that have the sport.

“At times it was quite hard and quite overwhelming to keep up with keeping people posted and yet they were so worried so while it was overwhelming it was so powerful for me to know that there was all these people thinking of him, praying for him, wishing him well.

“It was so important for me because the phone was all I had really because I could not go out so that made a big difference to me and I was just so delighted after 71 days that he’s as well as he is after all he’s gone through.”

After so long on a ventilator Dónal required considerable rehab therapy: He had lost a lot of weight and had suffered muscle wastage and so needed to have to rebuild his core strength and to return to walking and normal everyday activities.

“His rehab will be ongoing for months.”

When Dónal was discharged it was to some extent to a world unfamiliar to him: “He went to sleep on March 19 and we weren’t in lockdown then,” Aileen points out.

If the pandemic had not occurred, the Lawlor family would have had a big family occasion in April – the marriage of their daughter. However as the travel restrictions had begun to be imposed, the nuptials were postponed, and that had happened just before Dónal went into hospital.

She has little doubt Dónal will easily cope with the rehab therapy ahead of him. As it happens, his mother died last year, just two months short of her 104th birthday: “So you can imagine the genes there are there!” Aileen quips.

Dónal and Aileen with friends and neighbours and staff from Trend.