Dad, 40, learns to walk and talk again after spending 300 days in hospital with Covid

A DAD who had to learn to walk and talk again after spending 300 days in hospital with Covid pneumonia has finally gone home.

Described by doctors as “one of the sickest Covid patients we’ve ever seen”, Andrew Watts nearly had his ventilator switched off after he was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Christmas Day 2020.

Queen Elizabeth HospitalHospital staff all lined up to say goodbye to Andrew, who had spent 300 days at the hospital[/caption]

The 40-year-old black cab driver from Bexley, South London, is one of the longest staying Covid patients the hospital has had – eight months in intensive care and then two months on a ward.

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.

Speaking to MyLondon, the dad-of-two said: “A week before Christmas 2020, I started to feel ill.

“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.

“I was taken for a CT scan and that was when I was told that I had a pneuomothorax, which is a split on the lung.”

Andrew had to be on his own at the hospital due to Covid restrictions at the time, and he didn’t know how to break the news to his parents.

“I was on my own as this was the height of Covid, with no visitors allowed, so it was a lot to take in,” he added.

“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, Andrew’s lungs eventually started 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.

He also had to learn to talk and walk again because he was on a ventilator for so long, which came after two already tough years battling with his health.

He went through chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with lymph cancer in October 2019 and he was in remission just a few months before his Covid diagnosis.

Before going into the hospital, he had spent the majority of 2020 carefully shielding due to his cancer fight.

“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.”

Doctors, nurses, physios and speech and language therapists at the hospital got to know Andrew during his stay.

On October 21, when he was finally going home after having spent 300 days in total at the hospital, they all lined up to say goodbye to Andrew.

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.”

GoFundMeHis wife Hayley, and sons Jack, six, and Joshua, three, weren’t allowed to visit at first[/caption]