I am a kidney transplant recipient. I celebrated 22 years in June. I was the sick one basically our entire marriage. We married when I was 20, then had two children. Then went on dialysis at 27, transplanted at 29. Two weeks after my transplant, my mom passed away from ovarian cancer. I am familiar with trials in life and loss. But I am the sick one. So in August, out of eight of us family members (my husband, son, sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, daughter (who was pregnant with our first grandchild,) and myself). Seven of us got Covid, and five of us were hospitalized. I was the first one to be hospitalized on August 20th. Being a transplant recipient on immunosuppressive, I knew this wouldn’t be good for me. The day I was hospitalized, my husband had gone to the ER earlier in the day and was prescribed steroids and an inhaler. He was so worried about me, so I was glad he went and was also thinking about his health. I was released from the hospital on August 23rd. My sister was admitted to the hospital on August 23rd. The next day my husband was struggling to breathe, and what he had been given at the ER didn’t seem to work. I drove him to the hospital on August 24th. Four hours later, I called two ambulances to my house for both of his parents who lived with us. On August 27th, my sister was released, and I had her stay at my house because she lives alone and came home on Oxygen.

Tuesday morning September 14th at 7:00 am, the hospital called. It was my husband’s intensivist. He said, “Cynthia, this is Dr. H; we lost Eric.” That was it!!! My husband was in the hospital for a total of 22 days. All I get is “we lost Eric”? The last time I touched him was when I dropped him off at the ER on August 24th!!! My world turned upside down!!! He had ZERO comorbidities!!! I AM THE SICK ONE, NOT HIM!!! My household went from 5 people to 2 people in 4 weeks!!! I have had some kidney decline since having covid. My husband was the sole provider of our house financially due to my health issues for so many years. My father-in-law is in a nursing home permanently. My new granddaughter has been the light in this darkness. Now I try my best to get through each day. I didn’t understand how a perfectly healthy man could die in 3 weeks when I recovered. After getting his medical records from the hospital. Two days before he passed, I found out that he went into cardiac arrest when they flipped him. His intubation tube fell out, and they had to do CPR on him to revive him. I called that hospital twice a day every day he was in there to get updates from his nurses. I was NEVER informed of this. Seeing this recently just made it all come back like a flood. There has to be accountability somewhere. I believe in the Bible. It says to plead the cause of widows. I am a widow, and I will plead the cause of all who have lost a loved one to Covid-19.