St Albans Covid survivor makes new memory four years on

Karen Thorp was ventilated for 23 days and is "very grateful" to have got her singing voice back

A music lover who feared she may not sing again after being hospitalised with Covid in 2020 has spoken of her "full circle" moment.

Karen Thorp, from St Albans, spent three weeks under sedation after she fell ill on the first day of lockdown.

With vocal cords stretched by a ventilation tube, she faced the "devastating" prospect she would lose a "massive part of her life".

Four years on, she made a "new memory" with her biggest singing role to date.

Ms Thorp, a teacher, has been involved with singing for most of her life and is a member of the city's Bach Choir and St Albans Chamber Opera (SACO).

"Singing is actually my lifeline to good mental health if I'm honest," she said.

"It is what keeps me grounded and sane... it literally is a tonic.

"If I've got a rehearsal, I go and by the end of the evening I feel 100 times better."

Ms Thorp took part in a dress rehearsal for The Merry Widow the day before her first Covid symptom appeared - no-one else in the cast became ill

On 23 March, 2020, Ms Thorp was taken into Watford General Hospital with Covid. Ironically she thinks she caught the virus at a choir practice.

After a period which included being ventilated for 23 days, she was discharged six weeks later from Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Out of intensive care and back on a ward, her friends from SACO sent her a recording of Hail Poetry from the Pirates of Penzance, one of her favourite Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

"Everyone knew I loved it," she said, "so they recorded all the little bits in their houses and sent it as a sort of pick me up.

"I sat listening to it in my hospital bed and I tried to join in at the end and I couldn't... nothing happened."

She said the first time she went to the ear, nose and throat specialist at Addenbrooke's they told her it was difficult to tell if her singing voice would ever come back.

"They gave it a 50/50 chance," she said, "because obviously my vocal cords had been stretched by the ventilation tube and the longer they are stretched open for, the more they lose their elasticity."

On 23 March, 2020, Ms Thorp was taken into Watford General Hospital with Covid and put on a specialist machine to aid her breathing

Ms Thorp said not being able to sing was "a devastating thought" but she dealt with it like the rest of her recovery, adding if things had not worked out, she would have accepted it.

"It was not going to be a problem," she said, "I still feel survivor's guilt and think I can't really complain because of all those hundreds of thousands of people that didn't.

"I would have survived if I couldn't sing but it still would have been devastating if such a massive part of my life had gone."

Patiently waiting for things to improve, and "trying little bits of singing here and there", it was about 18 months before she and her doctors thought her voice was back to normal.

Singing the role of maid Annina in La Traviata, Ms Thorp said she was "just very grateful that I'm back to where I was before"

On the fourth anniversary of her hospitalisation, Ms Thorp, sang the part of Annina in La Traviata, something which she said was "huge" for her.

"I've never sung anything as big as that before so to be doing that on 23 March was like full circle," she said.

"It has been a slightly difficult day since 2020, but now I want to try to think about it as a day of celebration and triumph going forward.

"Now I have a new memory of that day... I absolutely loved it... I had a blast and will remember it for a long, long time."