Brave Covid survivor Libby fights back with fundraising swim to thank her charity helpers
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AN Inverness woman is fighting back from the horrific effects of Covid which nearly claimed her life and left her with long term physical damage, including acquired brain injury.
Determined businesswoman Libby Bligh (52) is doing all she can to bring a sense of normality back to her life, with part of her recovery plan involving swimming at Bannatyne’s Health Club and Spa in the city.
She has also had huge assistance from charities The Oxygen Works hyperbaric centre in Inverness and Headway Highland which focuses on improving life after brain injury.
With their help Libby has made such big improvements that she decided to combine her swimming therapy with raising money for both charities by completing 8km in the pool.
“I am determined not to let this disease determine the quality of my life” she said.
Libby was a strong wild water swimmer before her illness, previously making the news when she was stung by a lion’s mane jellyfish in the sea off Ardersier in 2020.
Having an anaphylactic reaction she spent 12 hours in hospital receiving treatment.
Of her more recent – and more serious – health battle she said: “After nearly dying from Covid and spending six weeks on a ventilator in ICU at Raigmore, I woke up paralysed down one side, with both lungs damaged and an acquired brain injury through oxygen starvation and inflammation.
“Intensive care nearly lost me twice from two cardiac arrests.
“My heart failed, my kidneys failed, my lungs failed, literally every part of my body failed.”
Libby had previously trained as a nurse and said she knew that, because she was already asthmatic, there was a one-in-three chance that she would not have survived being under ventilation.
Before the procedure was carried out she therefore made phone calls organising her funeral and her will, phoned her minister and transferred money to her daughter Angelina (20).
“The last thing I remember before going on the ventilator for six weeks was telling the medical team ‘I don’t want to die, and can you tell my daughter I love her,’” she said.
Libby said being on the ventilator was a “living nightmare” of terrible hallucinations brought on by the sedation and other drugs required as part of the life-saving treatment.
She continued: “When Angelina was eventually allowed in to see me, she said I looked and smelled like death
“I had to learn how to walk, talk and look after myself again.
“I couldn’t even make a cup of tea.
“Exactly a year ago I could only walk eight metres with a Zimmer frame.
“That was one of the criteria for being released from hospital, and why I intend to swim a total of 8km.”
She thanked Raigmore Hospital for “absolutely saving” her life and the NHS’s “amazing” discharge to assess programme that allows treatment to continue at home with carers coming in four times a day.
“I am swimming 8km to mark the anniversary of surviving Covid and through my JustGiving page help The Oxygen Works and Highland Headway,” she said.
“The hyperbaric chamber where you breathe oxygen at higher than usual atmospheric pressure is amazing.
“My brain feels energised afterwards and it speeds up nerve damage repair.”
Libby had hoped to complete the charity challenge in September, but suffered a relapse and was back in hospital for several days.
“I’ve had to shelve the superwoman attitude and set a new deadline for the end of October,” she said.
It means swimming 400 lengths of the 20m pool, and at the weekend Libby completed 4.9k, and her PB rose to 46 lengths per session.
Link - shorturl.at/chlsx
