COVID-19 Humanity Betrayal ㅤ Memory Project

I got COVID-19 around August 26, 2021. I remember feeling a little run down and tired. By Friday I was running a fever. I knew it was COVID, because other people in the office had it. On Saturday I went into the ER and they confirmed I had pneumonia, so they gave me a z-pack and a steroid and sent me home.

On August 30^th, I was gasping for air and went back to the hospital.  My O2 sats were at 79. They admitted me to the COVID-19 ward. They confirmed I had double pneumonia.  My breathing was very labored, even with oxygen.  The COVID-19 ward was awful!  The room wreaked of death.  You could feel it in the air.  There was one window, and they had tubing going out of it.  (I suppose it was to let out the sickness in the air.)

Everyone who came in had to wear a “space suit.”  I think this is why nurses wouldn’t answer when I called because it was a hassle to get dressed up in those things.  I wasn’t able to see family members or friends.  They would let them come once in a while, but they could only stay for fifteen minutes.

I ended up having to be on a catheter because I couldn’t breathe to get up and go to the bathroom. Most nurses were nice but a few were awful and mean. Once I was moved to ICU, the treatment was so much better. The room was full of windows so I could see other people and I knew I wasn’t alone. I was in ICU for a few days when I was put on the vent on September 9, 2021, and a medically induced coma.

I was so tired and suffocating so I asked to be vented so I could go to sleep and either die or wake up better. I figured I was going to die but prayed for a miracle.

As time went by, the doctors had no hope for me. They continued to tell my family that I wasn’t going to make it, but my family didn’t give up. They believed that the God of heaven and earth would get me through. They spread the word to people all over the world, different states and countries. I had a multitude of people praying for me.  Still, the doctors continued to tell them I was going to die. Of course, I continued to get worse so that was understandable (from a scientific perspective).

When I woke up I wished I would have died. I was pretty much paralyzed, on a vent, with a chest tube sticking out of my body. During my ordeal I had 4 collapsed lungs, 3 at one time. This was caused from the amount of pressure from the oxygen that was being pushed into my lungs. I was obviously asleep for most of the time so I only know what my family members told me.

In October, I coded after a simple procedure. The doctors brought me back after some time, and told my family I would have brain damage from the lack of oxygen. They did a test, and a doctor came in and told them it confirmed brain damage. The doctors said my family should let me die with dignity and let me go, but out of the blue, I woke up. I don’t remember this, but my family said I woke up to let them know I was okay.  I had tubes down my throat and couldn’t talk, but I was able to communicate with them. They rechecked the scans and apparently the young doctor had made a mistake. There was no sign of brain damage. Thank God my family kept fighting for me.

Apparently they were constantly asked to let me die with dignity.  Even though I requested full resuscitation before I went in my coma, they constantly tried to get my husband to sign a DNR. He was an amazing advocate and would refuse. He said as long as my organs held up, let her fight.

He had joined a Facebook support group that had survivors. They were explaining everything to him and telling him what to do and look out for. Essentially, they saved my life. Had he not have learned from them, he might have just listened to the doctors and I wouldn’t be here today.

I personally suffered from severe ICU delirium and horrific nightmares. I was in hell as I was fighting to stay alive both physically and mentally.  At one point I coded and they had to give me CPR which was the best thing that could have happened. The chest compressions moved the mucus around in my chest and caused my sats to come up. Once my sats came up, they were able to give me a trach and lower my oxygen.

I was on every kind of drug you could think of so when they started weaning me off of them, I had to go through withdrawals. Nobody explained to my family what was happening and they thought I was dying. Thankfully, my husband questioned the support group and they assured him that it was normal as my body was detoxing from the drugs. I remember in my dreams that I was a drug addict. I had never had any drugs in my life until the hospital gave them to me. They made me a drug addict, but they said it was necessary to keep me sedated.

There’s really so much more that I don’t even know but I do know that I am now permanently disabled because of my lung damage. I am still on oxygen after 3 years. I have 46% lung capacity and no quality of life. One virus could kill me because of the fragility of my lungs. I don’t necessarily blame the hospital staff for what they did. They followed protocol.  But the Feds, the CDC, the WHO, and Anthony Fauci are responsible for what happened to me. They need to be held responsible!

During my time in the hospital, I had multiple collapsed lungs with 3 chest tubes in at one time, a feeding tube, a pick line hooked up to 10 different medications, a catheter, tampons stuck up my nose from a bad bloody nose. You name it I was hooked up to it. I also developed ARDS.

After I coded, something quite miraculous happened. My oxygen stats went from the low 60’s to the mid 90’s! The doctors were dumbfounded and literally scratched their heads. It took weeks, but I was finally stable. I was transferred from my hometown hospital to a specialty hospital in Mesa, Arizona, that would help get me off of the ventilator.  Most people are ventilated for 2 to 3 weeks. I was ventilated for almost 5 months. While at Promise Hospital, I had my 4th collapsed lung and 4th chest tube put in.

I finally woke up January 6th, and was weaned from the ventilator January 26th. I was then transferred to a rehab facility where I was sponge bathed, changed, dressed – and all of this by 19 year old boys. It was definitely humbling.  I learned how to sit up, stand up, transfer to the camode and a wheelchair, and eventually take a few steps. I finally got my trach removed, and was sent home April 1st.

I now have pulmonary fibrosis in both lungs, my lung capacity is at 34%, am currently on 4 liters of oxygen when active and 2 liters when resting.  I am now able to walk about 100 feet before I have to sit and catch my breath, because my oxygen saturations drop.  I had a small pneumothorax in my left lung that finally sealed up about 3 months ago, but is still being monitored. I have a chronic cough that has been so bad I have dislocated my ribs three times.  I’m currently on multiple medications, one which controls my heart rate as I developed tachycardia. I was a very healthy person before covid, had no underlying health conditions, exercised regularly, took my vitamins and ate well. But it attacked my lungs.  I was not vaccinated at the time.