I was in my dream job helping to save people during covid when I was struck down by the disease and have been unable to work since
Former paramedic student calls for help in funding life-changing wheelchair
A former paramedic student who worked through the pandemic is calling for help to support her family after covid robbed her of her dream career.
Lucy Gatward, 34, from Emsworth, was in the final year of her paramedicine degree in 2022 when she was struck down by covid. Having been working on placement through the pandemic she had seen first hand the devastation that the disease had caused and it was now going to take away her ability to work and cause “irreversible” health issues.
Over four years later, Lucy has been diagnosed with POTS (dysautonomia) and small fibre dysfunction, leaving her with severe fatigue, dizziness, fainting episodes, misfunctioning body systems, pain and significant mobility issues. It has led to her being unable to fully support her autistic nine-year-old son who has additional needs.
Lucy is now reluctantly calling for help in funding the purchase of a new wheelchair which could dramatically change her life and allow her to create key memories with her family.
She said: “Because of my fatigue I cannot self-propel a manual wheelchair, I have to use an electric one. However, because I can stand up and walk a few steps I am not eligible for a power chair on the NHS. It leaves me with no mobility aids on the NHS, I have to purchase them myself.
“It’s heart-breaking because it means I can’t do so many things with my son that I want to be able to do. Those key family moments.”
Her health issues all started following the covid diagnosis, something she thought she had avoided after lasting through the lockdowns on the front line.
She said: “I saw a lot of the end of life side of covid when out on the road, a lot of people were very scared and it was so traumatic. Where I worked through the start to the end I thought ‘oh I have got lucky here and not caught it and managed to help all these people’ and then when the world opened up again, that is when I caught it.
“I was in and out of A&E a lot when I had it because my oxygen kept dropping and then I realised every time I stood up I was getting really dizzy and I started passing out.
“I was out on a cardiology referral as they could see my heart rate was climbing and climbing as I stood up. That was going to be a year and a half wait but I was fortunate that my mum had some private health care which meant I could go private and they said it was POTS. Over the next year I just continued to decline and it started not only affecting my heart rate but my bladder and digestion as well and I could not breathe properly.
She added: “It was tough. It was a big change in lifestyle going from long shifts doing my dream job and having an active lifestyle to not being able to work and having to sleep for long periods every day. I get severe fatigue which is tough as I have a nine-year-old son with autism and additional needs. He needs a lot from me and I can’t necessarily give him what he needs all the time.”
Lucy counts herself as very fortunate to be referred to a POTS clinic in Kings College London which she describes as “amazing”. There they diagnosed her with small fibre dysfunction, something that affects the nerve fibres which control temperature, pain sensation, and involuntary body functions.
She has recently found out that the damage is irreversible and she will likely be in a wheelchair for the remainder of her life.
“It took me a very long time to grieve the career that I lost, it was who I was,” Lucy said: “I have come to terms with it now.”
With her current wheelchair becoming more and more dangerous to use, she has decided to ask for help.
She said: “People have been saying for a few years that I should start a GoFundMe as my chair is not suitable. I have always been very reluctant to ask others for money, it makes me anxious and I don't like it. However this is life time now and I need to think seriously about what I need and what my family needs for me to be able to provide for them and support them.”
With a new wheelchair, she is hoping to get out more with her son to create cherished lasting memories.
Lucy, who now lives in Botley, said: “It is the silly little things like being able to take the dog for a walk with my son in the woods or country park, places that I can’t access at the moment and that he loves being in and they help him be calm. If he wants to go camping we could go camping, its those core family memories that I remember so well from when I grew up and I don’t want him to miss out on that.”
While unable to work, Lucy is currently undertaking a master in psychology which she hopes will enable her to work flexibly in the future in counselling.
The details of her GoFundMe and how to donate can be found here: gofund.me/0b97e4a6f