Dungog woman recovers from Coronavirus

The Dungog retiree has rarely been out since she lost her husband - her best friend Brian - to lung cancer in October last year.

She broke her self imposed isolation by deciding at the last minute to join a friend on a Sydney to Tasmania luxury cruise, thinking the change of scenery might help with her grief.

Soon after returning she tested positive for COVID-19.

"I had a few people say do you really want to go on a cruise?," she said of her decision to travel in early March.

"I said 'oh no it will be fine'. This ship had been in Australian waters for a while."

She said once on the ship they were told there was no one from Wuhan on board - Wuhan being the original epicentre for Coronavirus.

"What they didn't tell us was they had a whole lot of people from Japan and a whole lot of people that had flown in the day before from England."

Cheryl is now almost fully recovered from Coronavirus but does have scaring on her lungs. She is still lethargic and knows it will take some time for her to bounce back to her old self.

"I have been very, very sick," she said.

On March 9 she caught a bus and train to Sydney to board the Cunard Queen Elizabeth bound for Tasmania with her friend who lives in Queensland. They had a "marvelous time", said Cheryl who treated them both to a few relaxing spa days on the ship.

They wandered around Eden but Cheryl chose to stay on board at Port Arthur leaving her friend to explore by herself. At Hobart the pair hired a car to see friends at Oatlands and rejoined the cruise.

Once off the ship on March 15 she got a taxi to Central station, a bus to Broadmeadow and then the train back to her home in Dungog.

The next morning Cheryl woke up "as sick as a dog".

She had a sore throat, hacking cough, headache, shortness of breath, a high temperature and a lack of appetite.

She called her GP who organised a script for antibiotics for her as she has underlying health conditions - she's had previous bouts of pneumonia plus she has chronic asthma.

She asked to be tested for coronavirus but was told she didn't meet the (then) criteria - although she had been on a cruise she had not been out of Australian waters.

She was calling her GP each day to give an update of her symptoms and by day eight, March 24 she was tested for coronavirus.

When she got the call to say she was positive she was hardly surprised. She was told to quarantine - which she had already been doing.

She posted on a community page on Facebook letting others know she was one of the confirmed cases in the shire.

"People were talking about it and I basically outed myself," she said.

"As far as I was concerned the community needed to know.

"I didn't want people fearing where it was. I wanted people to know I was doing the right thing and in quarantine."

She was advised to have her lungs checked out which revealed she had likely had developed pneumonia in the first week.

Cheryl was told she could come out of self isolation last weekend. Despite now testing negative for the virus she has no plans to go out without a mask - for her own safety.

"My immune system is now compromised and if I do go out I will have a mask on to protect myself," she said.

"Even when all this is over I will make sure when I am out and about and in the street I will have a mask on."

Her friend last week received an email from Cunard with a letter attached from NSW Health advising there was one confirmed case of coronavirus on the cruise.

The passengers were advised if they had any symptoms prior to March 31 to consult a doctor .

Her friend also received an email from Queensland Health asking her self isolate and not to leave her home.

"I'd have to be the unluckiest person in the world, to be the one and only person on board to get coronavrius." said Cheryl.

"I don't believe there was only one. On a Facebook page I am on friends have had relatives on the exact same cruise who had developed symptoms."

There were more than 2000 passengers on the cruise.

"There's no way they can say the Queen Elizabeth wouldn't have had it on board. All these other ships have got it, why would they be any different?"

She said her Tasmanian friends have had a "dreadful time" stressed and worrying they may have been infected when she visited them.

Cheryl is adamant she will not cruise again.

"I do see cruising very differently now, very much so," she said.

"I think a lot of cruises are targeted at older people and I don't think older people should go on cruises for the simple reason the terminology that they are using at the moment is they are a human petri dish and yes, they are.

"I've decided I'm not doing one again."

She welcomed the broader testing now available and the new social distancing rules.

And when the world returns to normal what is she looking forward to?

She is about to start to build a house in Tasmania. Her children live in Sydney and she said it will actually take less time to get to their homes from Tasmania.