I’ve been taking my time to write this.
Several weekends ago my family got together. We’d skipped birthdays and our 27th Anniversary because my OM had been exposed to Covid a couple of times and finally it seemed that all were well.
They came over, we ordered from an Italian restaurant on the island, played games and held that sweet baby.
My husband ran to the grocery store to get juice for my granddaughter. My om went with him and bought cough drops.
At some point I picked the cough drops up and asked whose they were. I didn’t think much of it. I just placed them where they wouldn’t be forgotten when they left.
Two days later om gets sick and so do I. Mine is slower moving than hers. She sees a doc who asks what SHE thinks she has and she says bronchitis and takes the rest of the week off. I get a sore throat, cough, body aches and begin the process of becoming quite stupid.
My YM and the boy start going down. The cough drops.... the son in law had had a sore throat. Excused it as allergies.
I decide that I need a test. The husband and I go get a rapid test.... Covid. I get cough meds, steroids, z-pack, told to take vit D and magnesium and zinc and melatonin.
The next day I can’t breathe. Let me be more clear. I can inhale but I’m not getting oxygen. I feel like a fish looks when they are out of water. I get in the shower and can’t stand. I’m now gulping for air. I am that fish.
I thrown on pajamas as fast as I’m able and my husband drives me to the hospital. I think I’m not going to make it... 2 miles away.
My body starts shaking uncontrollably. My husband gets a wheel chair.... help me. Hurry. I say. I’m shaking, gasping for air. The receptionist talking to someone. I start hallucinating. Seeing and feeling things that aren’t there. I can’t hold my own head up Hurry!! I yell. I’m falling forward I think but I wasn’t. My mind wanders to my YM who has seizures that cause her to feel like she’s moving forward. Am I doing that?
They take me back and start the normal process. Blood from both arms to look for sepsis. Iv. Heart monitor. Chest x-ray, ekg, pulse ox etc.....
My ekg is nuts, my pulse is high, my blood pressure dangerously high, my pulse ox is 79, my lactic acid 4.88(critical and probably why my muscles are in a spasm).....
After 30 minutes the doc comes in and says “You’re being admitted” my husband asks if it’s just for the night and doc says “ Hell no”
He says that they’re gonna get me a bed to put in my er room because all rooms are filled and there’s 7 people ahead of me.
30 minutes later I’m being moved to the Covid unit. My husband asks if he can leave and get my things... phone charger, blanket, pillow etc. they say yes. He walks out the door, turns and says “ I’ll be right back”
I’m moved to my room and the process starts of four bags of fluid, more blood, magnesium, steroids, insulin, breathing treatments, etc....
My husband comes back and they tell him that he can’t come in. I’m in isolation. No visitors. He hands them my things to give to me.
He calls to tell me that he can’t come in. He sits in the parking lot for four hours waiting for the call that he can look through the “goodbye window” each room has a small window through which family members can watch their loved one die. I don’t know that he’s in the parking lot still. He’s thinking “ what if the last thing I ever said was, ‘ I’ll be right back? ( could be worse) and he runs that over and over through his mind.
I try and sleep. The coughing is burning my throat and chest. My body aches, my head pounding. I hallucinating that I’m somewhere else. I see a small dog on my bed. I can’t understand what the nurses say. My brain is mushy. If I sleep on my back I stop breathing. I hear a nurse yelling my name.... Breathe! That’s right. Deep breaths. They tape the oxygen into my mouth. They discovered that I have a badly deviated septum on my right side and the oxygen won’t go in correctly.
I have black eyes like I’ve been punched.
I can’t rest. I’m on a thirty minute round. I “sleep” but I know they’re coming and my mind won’t entirely let go.
Eventually we decide that I’m not declining but staying even. I want to go home and sleep. Send me a nurse. Hook me up with a picc line.
I went home. I slept for two days with the exception of breathing treatments, meds, blood checks, insulin etc... no food. Wake up for one day, 12 hours, eat, sleep for two more days, no food. The fainting started somewhere in there.
I’m still not allowed to walk.
But I’m not feeling like I’m a goldfish flopping on a table. My oxygen is slowly gaining. I’m now a 89-90. My heart is better.
I’m a warrior. My name says so.
I can not put into words what this experience has put my family through
Don’t fuck around. Wear a mask.
I have to go.
Me
