Carolyn Forsyth thought she was going mad. It was late 2021 and the GP from Inverness was bamboozled by a range of increasingly "bizarre" cognitive symptoms which had taken hold after a relatively mild bout of Covid in October 2021. Despite working in a busy A&E department at Raigmore hospital throughout the pandemic, it was her first infection.
After self-isolation ended, she went to the supermarket. "I remember just standing in the aisle for a full hour. I'd pick things up and put them down.
I couldn't make a decision. "I had no idea what was going on - my brain just wasn't working." READ MORE: Long Covid campaigners anger over 'exclusion' from UK Covid inquiry Why some scientists think it's time to stop talking about 'long Covid' From long Covid to PANDAS: Are we finally unravelling post-viral illnesses? Days later, on a resuscitation training course, she found herself re-reading the same page in a manual over and over again as the words "scrambled" and evaporated from her memory.
As well as crippling fatigue, she was plagued by strange sensations that left her feeling as though she were watching the world around her "like a TV , but with white noise". Returning to work she was scared of making mistakes, but worried how extending her sick leave might be perceived. She said: "I was terrified that people would think I was malingering and that not going back to work was me trying to skive off nightshifts.
"I tried desperately to hide what was wrong with me because I was morti.