First off, the experience with my father has been the most life changing event I’ve ever gone through. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. I frequently have dreams of talking to him at events in time that I’ll never get to have with him. I still remember everything clear as day. Getting the phone call right after work of him being in the middle of trying to be revived, and I lived 40 minutes away from the hospital.  I had taken over being the proxy between the hospital and my mom, every day getting updates from the nurse so she wouldn’t have to stress it. I will never forget when I had to call her to tell her and my sister needed to rush to the hospital quickly, and the wailing that followed from my mother was just so harrowing and has become imbedded in my soul.

I had to fight my emotions and stay focused to drive there as fast as I could, despite the fact that I knew 40 minutes would pass between the call and me driving. I almost passed out at the wheel from shock multiple times, but I managed to drive there before almost collapsing and having a guard help me. I had no news but I first needed to get hydrated to be able to stand. I’ll never forget being the first to arrive and to hear the news that my father had passed, and waited until my mother and sister came around 15-20 minutes later not knowing the end result. When I saw them walk in I couldn’t even say any words and I didn’t know what to do. But our entire family was absolutely shattered and I felt like God himself had forsaken us.

We were never allowed to see him, save for one time right before he was put on a ventilator. My sister couldn’t even see him because she had just contracted covid, and so she never got to see him one last time. After that, one doctor became infuriated about us being there and demanded we leave and not be permitted back again. The final time our family got to see him in that hospital was when he laid there on the bed, cold as ice. The entirety of the situation and the lack of humane protocol has put me in a state of depression, and the events replay over and over in my head.

In July of that year I also got covid and was sick for 23 days. The very first hospital I went to wouldn’t even admit me, and were quite rude and inpatient. We made due with what we had to try to fight it, but I eventually reached 87 oxygen and had to go to another ER. This different hospital did admit me, and I was there for about 4 days, all of which I received remdesivir as treatment. My doctor took I then was sent home on an oxygen machine, where I stayed with my mom for several weeks until I was cleared to be off the machine.