An international DJ forced to abandon his dream after a long period of Covid which left him bedridden for a year

A DJ who traveled the world before suddenly finding himself bedridden for a year with long Covid, causing memory loss and mobility problems, has since “lost his career” and now mainly spends his days lying down.

Rowan Clarke, 32, a part-time video editor and sound designer from Colchester, contracted Covid-19 in 2021 and gradually became “increasingly ill” to the point where he was in constant pain, could no longer remember his own phone number and could barely walk.

On top of this, Rowan had constant headaches, which meant he could barely work and check email, and ended up having to close his recording studio.

At the time, Rowan was the fittest he had ever been, running 15km a day and preparing to take a fire service exam to become a part-time firefighter – he also had to give it up due to of his condition.

When he went to see doctors about his symptoms, he said he felt like they were “putting him under medical stress,” and he was told there was “nothing wrong.” hurt” and that it might just be anxiety – one doctor even asked him “Do you want me to do it?” wave my magic wand?

After going back and forth to doctors for a year, he was finally diagnosed with long Covid, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia, and prescribed low-dose naltrexone (LDN) to manage his pain and fatigue.

In recent months he has experimented with alternative medicine, including a small earphone that sends electrical signals to his brain, but he still spends “most of the day lying down” and admits he has lost many friends since ‘he is ill. almost gave up on “trying to explain it to people”.

Rowan told PA Real Life: “I spend most of the day lying down, but I work now, not full time, but I can do it.

“It changed my whole life – I lost a lot of friends, I lost my career, I lost everything.

“(At first) they told me it was just anxiety, they denied there was anything wrong with me – the mental toll was horrible, it was like a medical spotlight.

“Immediately the doctors told me, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you’…the more I listened to them, the more I believed them.

“A doctor said to me, ‘Do you want me to wave my magic wand?’

“I just couldn’t believe it, I just thought ‘Why would I be here?’ You know, why should I quit my job and leave the fire department? It just didn’t make sense…

“You would think that having headaches every day for a year, they would do brain scans or assume things would be taken seriously.”

Before the pandemic, Rowan was “living the dream” traveling the world, DJing internationally and even hosting TV shows in the Philippines.

But that quickly fell apart: in 2021, he contracted the delta variant of Covid-19.

At first he had the ‘usual symptoms’ of a sore throat and cough – on going to the doctor he was told he might have an allergy, but after taking a Covid test he realized he had the virus.

“I tried to get back to normal, but I got sicker and sicker and got to the point where I was completely bedridden for a year, it was really confusing,” he said. explain.

“I was in constant pain – I had headaches for about a year straight and nothing was working at all.

“I felt like my muscles were coming out of my body…I couldn’t remember my phone number, I couldn’t remember people’s names.

“I would be out of breath, like I couldn’t get down the stairs and I would wake up and feel like I had been hit by a bus.

“It was just the scariest thing.”

Rowan also couldn’t “look at screens or deal with sounds,” meaning he couldn’t check his emails and struggled to get work done, so he ended up closing his recording studio .

Additionally, after about a month of illness, he was scheduled to take a fire department exam because he was considering becoming a part-time firefighter, but that also had to be put on hold.

Over time, Rowan unfortunately had to accept that he was not able to train as a firefighter and decided to go to the doctor as his condition was not improving.

A year after Rowan first got sick and continued to see the doctor, he was finally diagnosed with long Covid, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.

He said: “I was referred to a lengthy Covid clinic, but the advice was mainly to calm me down, which didn’t really help at all.

“My life is built around my rhythm, I try to have some kind of life.

“It’s a beautiful sunny day right now and I really want to go for a run but I feel like I’ve been hit by a car.

“It’s like a prison.

“You give up trying to explain it to people, and it’s been difficult trying to have relationships.”

However, Rowan has a girlfriend of a year, Rosie Helliwell, 27, and said: “She knew people with a similar illness and could understand it, so I was very lucky to meet her, I think, but we cannot meet expectations. of a relationship, to be honest.

Rowan has since been privately prescribed low-dose naltrexone (LDN) to relieve his chronic pain and fatigue, which has allowed him to move around much more, but he has still not been able to run since he contracted Covid. .

As for the future, Rowan said: “I have mixed emotions (about the future) because I’m disabled and so much has changed, I’ll never have the life I have had before.

“But on the bright side, it seems like there’s a lot of research being published on long covid.

“There are a lot of people in this community who are very upset and angry and depressed, but I just think you have to look at everything in a positive way as much as possible.”

When asked if Rowan would ever return behind the decks, he replied: “I don’t know because I wouldn’t be able to stand that long.

“I hope so, but I really don’t know.”