From Intensive Care to Hyperbaric Therapy: My Own Road Back

Recovering from serious illness doesn't always end the day you leave hospital. Sometimes that's only the beginning - the beginning of a new way of doing things.

A Sudden Fight for Survival

In early February 2021, I contracted Covid-19. I took the infection so severely that I spent forty-seven days in hospital fighting to survive, eighteen of those days in intensive care on high volumes of high-pressure oxygen, day and night.

During this time I was struggling, and reached the stage where a ventilator was being discussed by the ward doctors. The infection load was so heavy that at times I would almost pass out when taking a break from the high-pressure oxygen and mask. But in a last effort, and by my own choice, I wanted to fight through one more night instead. My mind was made up - I had no options left. If things didn't turn around, I was going on a ventilator. I had nothing left to give.

The Turning Point

That night took everything I had, but for all the struggle it was, it proved to be my turning point. A full eight hours with no breaks on high-pressure oxygen allowed my oxygen levels to stabilise a little. I wasn't fully out of the woods, but it was the first positive change I had seen in weeks.

I was eventually discharged from hospital following further monitoring, though I knew the fight wasn't over.

Life After Discharge: Learning to Breathe Again

To allow my discharge, I still needed home oxygen therapy just to breathe on my own again and find my way back to a new normal. To support this, I had two oxygen concentrators installed in the house and seven portable oxygen cylinders, allowing me short, slow walks when I had the strength, or a drive in the car.

This was my new normal for a further eight months.

The Recovery That Never Quite Finished

Slowly, things improved - but not back to where I was before being ill, that's for sure. Even once I came off the home oxygen and got back to work, the illness had left its mark. For years afterwards I lived with breathlessness that crept up on simple tasks, fatigue that never seemed to lift, and a fog in my thinking that made ordinary days feel heavy. I assumed that was simply what recovery looked like now - something I had to learn to live with.

Discovering Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

In 2025, some four years after leaving hospital, I discovered hyperbaric oxygen therapy quite by chance, and thought, right, let's give this a go. After ten sessions, I realised this therapy was the missing link I had been hoping for.

Those ten sessions were quite amazing - my breathing pattern changed, my energy levels improved, and the brain fog started to lift.

From Personal Recovery to
Deep O₂

This experience prompted me to seriously consider sharing this therapy. Over early 2026 I put an investment plan together and sourced a central location in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, with easy free parking, to establish Deep O₂ Hyperbaric Wellness and make this therapy available to others.

My personal belief is in trying different approaches and thinking outside the box, especially when there aren't a lot of other options.

Hyperbaric pressure allows that life-giving, essential oxygen to reach deep within the body.

How Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Can Help

Beyond my own journey, I've come to understand how hyperbaric oxygen therapy can support the body's natural healing, improve circulation, and help with issues ranging from improving energy and lifting brain fog to speeding up recovery from injury or surgery. It's also increasingly used by athletes wanting to bounce back faster from training and competition.

If you're living with lingering fatigue, brain fog, or breathlessness long after an illness, or you're simply looking to recover better after physical exertion, please know there's support out there. At Deep O₂, we offer hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a calm, welcoming setting, built on real lived experience of recovery, not just theory.

Real Experience, Not Just Theory

Deep O₂ is a business, absolutely - that's the only way it could be. But it's one I am focused on continuing to grow and improve, alongside other complementary therapies. In all honesty, I am not one for gimmicks. For me, what makes Deep O₂ worthwhile is seeing others find another option when there was little else available - whether that's for healing, sports recovery, or general wellness - and then stepping out to see if it works for them.

For me, it was: what's to lose, and what could be to gain?

Get in Touch

If this is something that interests you, please get in touch. Deep O₂ would love to help you renew, revive, relax, and find your own way back.