My life turned on a dime.
One day, I was at my office as a state employee working as a counselor for the disabled, and the next day, I was flat on my back in bed, fighting for my life.
As a 59-year-old woman living alone, I had few options for help.
I was among the first to contract COVID-19. It was in January 2020 when the Centers for Disease Prevention alerted the nation about this dreaded disease.
I knew firsthand that declaration was no idle threat. My throes were all too real. It’s difficult to say how long I floundered in the dark praying for help when my daughter Angel came to the rescue.
She called 911, and paramedics were promptly on the scene. Because this affliction was mysterious and dangerous, the paramedics were reluctant to enter my house. They asked that I step out to the gurney.
I wish I knew how I found the strength to feebly rise from my bed and stagger outside to the waiting gurney.
After I had arrived at the hospital, a doctor said that had my daughter arrived 45 minutes later, I would have been dead.
Because Angel is a nurse, she had a pulse oximeter in her car. My oxygen level was a mere 63. Normal levels range from 95 and above.
At that point, I didn’t know my name. Yes, my vital organs started to shut down. I was dying and didn’t even know it. I cried.
I had hypoxia and double pneumonia at the same time. My heart was working overtime and I was at risk of having a heart attack. Yet I was the first patient in Racine, Wisconsin, who survived COVID-19 while hospitalized.
This drastically reduced oxygen level rendered me confused. I failed to charge my cellphone, so it soon died. No wonder I missed calls from family, friends, and work colleagues.
There was not yet a standard of medical care. Everything was experimental. So doctors treated me with a treatment for malaria.
One ICU doctor threatened to put me in an induced coma so he could put me on a ventilator.
I strenuously refused that treatment because I believed that I was way too weak to survive that ordeal.
My adamance won out and the doctor begrudgingly changed his mind about the coma and the ventilator.
All I could do was pray and fight for life. Five days later, I was getting stronger. Hope redoubled. I sensed that I could live. Nine days later, I left that hospital.
Doctors feverishly gave me antibiotics, fluids, and only God knows what else. Doctors increased from oxygen from 10 to 13 liters. And it worked.
Nine days later, I went home, although I was not at all convinced that I was well enough to take care of myself alone at home. However, I could understand that the hospital needed beds to treat a rapidly swelling number of other beleaguered patients.
My memory had been decimated, and a level of confusion persisted. But at least I was alive, marginally mobile and home. My memory improved gradually.
Still, I have much to be thankful for.
I am not driven to tell my story because there is so much misinformation circulating about COVID-19. It is real, not a conspiracy or human imagination.
It is not widely publicized, but COVID-19 continues to claim lives and otherwise injure victims.
This scourge complicates other medical conditions, wreaking havoc on the elderly and the weak.
Sure, I’m paranoid when I hear others cough near me. Had you experienced my ordeal you would be paranoid too.
Paranoia is better than being delusional and skeptical in the face of overwhelming evidence that COVID-19 is real and it persists.
Recovery was gradual. There was no therapy. I had to do it on my own, but I’m here to tell you about it. And that is my mission!
COVID-19 is Real! Take care of yourself. Keep living.
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