'You've got to take me to the doctor, or I'm going to die.' These three COVID-19 patients were on the brink of death—and miraculously survived. They walked us through what it was like to contract the virus and the difficulties they faced in recovery.
Courtesy Sims familyhas been a story of profound tragedy -- for the families and loved ones of people who died and for the millions who wound up sick and hospitalized.
In April 2020, Krakower, the psychiatry unit chief at Zucker Hillside Hospital, in Glen Oaks, New York, had chills so intense that he had to jump into the shower to warm up. But at the time he didn't realize he was experiencing the onset of the deadly virus that was gripping the world. Out of all of the treatments doctors tried, prednisone, vitamin C, and several others,"nothing was working," he said. Krakower lost his voice completely, had a chronic pain in his throat and developed a dry cough so severe he described it as a"loud, barking cough." His mucus turned bloody, and he knew he had developed inflammation in his throat.
At the time, New York City had not yet hit its peak of COVID-19 patients as it became the epicenter for the spread of the virus in the U.S. Glatter recalled that Krakower's first concern was about patients who were sicker than he was, but Glatter had to remind him that, in his condition, he desperately needed treatment too.
The rehabilitation was intense, he recalled. He was weak and had to practice walking again -- getting down the stairs without clutching onto the railing was difficult. He still could not speak and did not eat solid foods for about 2 1/2 months, as his throat remained swollen well into July. A home care nurse came twice a week to help him, and his meals and medications were brought to him by his wife. He Facetimed his children so they would still be able to see him.
Curtis Sims, a service manager at Great Plains Kubota, a tractor dealer in Duncan, Oklahoma, first tested positive on Oct. 19, but it wasn't until Halloween that he started to feel the effects of COVID-19, he told ABC News. Lacey Anderson, an ICU nurse at Comanche County Memorial Hospital, told ABC News that when she first saw Sims his entire body was swollen -- likely due to his kidney or other organs not functioning properly and therefore not able to flush out the fluids and other medications being administered to them, she said.
While at OU, Sims' family was called into the hospital to potentially say goodbye. Sims had specified on his"Do Not Resuscitate" order to only revive him twice, and he had already coded as many times, he said. When Sims first visited Anderson at the Comanche County Memorial Hospital, he was unrecognizable, she said. Sims' case was a breath of fresh air among all the devastation the medical staff has faced in the past year.
"My husband and I sleep in the same bed, share the same bathroom," Martin said."Every so often, I might pick up his toothbrush, and we're just together all the time." Lopez was worried about Martin's prognosis. The longer someone is on a ventilator, the higher the chances something else could happen, such has kidney or liver failure, he said. When it was time to transfer Martin, she was so unstable that disconnecting her from one ventilator and hooking her up to another became too risky. They had to wait until she was stable and then eventually transferred her.
She is still in rehab, where the first thing they worked on was speaking again before moving on to eating and occupational therapy, including basic tasks such as dressing herself. She can not wait for the day she can drive again and regain her independence. "And so to have that many people going down all at once was just overwhelming," Anderson said."...I think we all went home in tears."
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