A brave 83-year-old woman from Leyland who suffers from Alzheimer's has left hospital after recovering from Covid-19

Courageous Kathleen McKay fought the coronavirus in Chorley Hospital and won.

The mother of seven, grandmother of 16 and great grandmother of 12 – with another due next week – is now back on the road to recovery in her Leyland care home.

Her daughter, Dee Price, 54, described her mum, who will be 84 next month, as “wonderful” and “amazing” and said all the family had joined together in prayer for her as she lay in her hospital bed, her life in the balance.

Kathleen was taken to Royal Preston Hospital before being transferred to Chorley Hospital’s Brindle Ward on Wednesday, April 15.

“She got rushed in by ambulance because she had a chest infection,” said Dee, of Wigan Road, Leyland.

Kathleen was treated for coronavirus and given antibiotics, fluids and oxygen, but did not need to go on a ventilator, said Dee.

Dee, who runs a hairdresser’s shop in Farington, Leyland, said the family used WhatsApp to co-ordinate prayers for Kathleen.

“We did a prayer every day at 12 o’ clock,” she said.

“We were upset because she was so weak.”

The family were told “it could go either way” for Kathleen, who was brought up in a convent in Preston before working on a farm, then meeting her husband to be John McKay, who died in May, 1999, aged 67.

But she recovered and came home to Lostock Grove care home,Leyland, where she has been a resident for three years, on Thursday.

Before moving into the home, she had lived in Westmorland Close, Leyland.

While she was in Chorley Hospital, the family took her cakes and Maltesers, which, said Dee, the nurses came out to collect and take in for her.

“We could ring and they were absolutely beautiful on the phone, they were amazing,” said Dee.

“They looked after her really well.”

Dee said the family used to take the goodies to the home during the visiting ban and talk and wave to Kathleen through the window.

And they are using step ladders as they cut a bush outside her window to see into her.

Kathleen waves back. “She dances with her hands, she’s lovely.

“They’ve put the chair facing the window. She’s got a massive telly so she’s watching that. We pop up when we can. It’s wonderful just seeing her. I can’t tell you what it’s like.

“It was so upsetting. We were all crying. we thought we were going to lose her.”

Dee praised the staff at the home for the care and attention they have been giving her mother, too.

She said: “They’ve just been lovely, amazing.”

Dee said the family thought the virus “could have taken her, but it didn’t.

“She’s skin and bone. She’s like a feather.”

But she added: “She’s beautiful, she’s wonderful.”