An 80-year-old man has told how his love for his wife of almost 60 years pulled him back from the brink of death.
Doctors feared Johnny MacAllister, from Oban, would become the latest victim of the killer disease after he was struck down with Covid-19.
However, the former lorry driver said his everlasting love for wife Ann, coupled with the care he received from NHS staff at Lorn and Islands Hospital, saved his life.
Mr MacAllister, who fell in love with Ann when he was 14 and she was just 13, arrived back home on May 8 after battling coronavirus for three weeks.
Carers are now helping him regain his strength so he can fulfil his dearest wish to see Ann, who has Alzheimer’s and lives in Eadar Glinn care home, Oban.
The father-of-six said: “I am learning to walk again with a zimmer, but as soon as I am well I am going up to see Ann. I phoned the home and told them I would be up soon and said to them, ‘Do me a favour and tell her I love her’.”
Mr MacAllister, who was looked after by his wife after he lost his sight more than 20 years ago, was taken into hospital last month after he collapsed in his flat.
He said: “Nobody was coming near me because of the virus so I was in the flat myself. I managed to get into the bathroom and got the taps on, but next thing I collapsed and was on the floor. It was horrific.
“Then somebody said ‘Come on Johnny, get up’. By the grace of God the carer had come in, then the paramedics came and I was taken to hospital.
“I was really bad, the doctor thought I wouldn’t make it, but we are very lucky – we have got the best doctors and nurses in the world.
“They couldn’t do enough for me and I kept thinking of my wife, she was on my mind all the time. I said, ‘Come on Ann’ and she helped me, our love got me through it.”
Recalling how he fell in love with Ann, now 79, when she came up from her home in Govan, Glasgow, for a holiday with her aunt, who lived next door to Johnny’s family, he said:
“I saw her and it was love, I can still remember it.
“She was 13 and I was 14 and we kept writing and corresponding.
Then she got a job in Oban at the Co-op and then, when she was 19, we got married.”
The couple have four surviving children, 14 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren and Mr MacAllister said: “If I had my life to live again I would go looking for my wife.
“When I first met her I loved everything about her, she had a beautiful nature and a lovely smile – it was true love, it started right away.”
It is not known how Mr MacAllister, who had been suffering from a urinary infection, caught the virus but a test in hospital proved positive.
His son, Peter, 56, who lives in Oban, said it was a really worrying time when his father was so ill because the family couldn’t visit him in hospital.
He said: “He was bad, but the staff were fantastic and it doesn’t surprise me that he said it was love that pulled him through – they are like Siamese twins. He has said to me, when your mother goes, I want to go too.”
The couple will have been married 60 years in October and the family hope lockdown will have eased by then so they can all get together, to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here