James Lyon’s Story

September 15, 2021 will have forever changed my life and the life of my family. The saddest day of my life and a story that breaks my heart to relive the events that took place that August and September of 2021.

My name is Mary Jo Lyon and I came down with COVID-19 on August 4 and after going to 2 different ERs, I was sent home with some different medications. I asked for the infusion at both ERs and was refused. On August 16^th during the night I woke my husband and told him I had to go to hospital my O2 level had dropped to 78 and I was having hard time breathing. I was diagnosed with COVID pneumonia, blood clots in lungs and legs. After spending a couple days in the hospital with very little care I demanded that I go home. The care at the hospital was so bad that I felt I would die if I didn’t get out of the hospital. I was released from the hospital Aug. 19 and got home about midnight. I was on oxygen for several weeks after coming home. I was not given the medication REMDESIVIR.

The Saturday, August 21, after I got home from the hospital my husband said he wasn’t feeling to well and thought it was his bronchitis that was bothering him. Since it was a Saturday I told him he needed to go to the local urgent care and be checked out. He left for the clinic and within 45 min. I received a call that my husband had passed out and hit his head on the floor. He was in route to the hospital. There was nothing I could do since I was sick at home and the hospitals weren’t letting anyone go in the ER but I was able to get a call to him later that night. He had tested positive for COVID-19.

He was admitted to Christus Mother Frances in Tyler, Tx. on Aug. 21, 2021. Little did I know that he would never come home again.

He was given multiple medications on arrival at hospital and one medication that was given was REMDESIVIR, the death drug. My husband, Jim, had a history of COPD and had been under a doctor’s care for years because of lung and bronchial problems. He should have NEVER been given REMDESIVIR because of his past medical history. He continued to get worse then he would get a little better and it was a see saw effect each day.

When I was finally able to go to the hospital I was only allowed to go see him once a day for 10 minutes when he was in ICU and I was not allowed in his room and could only see him through glass and talk on the phone. On September 3, I got a call from the nurse saying that I needed to come to the hospital that they needed to intubate him because he had gotten to the place he could barely breathe and they wanted to intubate him before it was an emergency. We live an hour from the hospital but I got there as fast as I could. His breathing was labored and he had gone days without sleep. I was able to be with him about 30 minutes before they came in to intubate him. I had so very little time with him and I have relived those few minutes that I was able to be with him over and over again. I was told to wait in the waiting room and they would come get me. The doctor told me that if they had not intubated him that day he would not have made it through the night. To see my husband in that condition was so devastating I felt I could hardly breathe myself.

From that day forward it was touch and go until his death. I went to be at the hospital one day (for 10 minutes) and I saw that others were gowning up and going into the ICU rooms. I asked the nurse if I could go into his room and she said I would have to gown up and put on two masks to go in, which I did. So each time I went to hospital I put all the necessary things on and was able to stay with him. I know he could not respond but I talked to him and played his favorite music for him and then cry all the way home. One day he would be better then he would get worse until September 14^th about 10:00 p.m. I got a call from the chaplain’s office telling me my husband had had massive heart attacks and did I want them to continue resuscitating him.

They said he would continue having heart attacks because his system had shut down and all organs had failed. (I had been there that morning and the nurses were general in their observation of him to me. I believe they knew all the time that he was failing fast.)  So I told them “no”  if he was having massive heart attacks so I gave a DNR order. They told me they would keep him alive with meds until I could get to the hospital.  His body was so swollen and his lungs were full of fluid and his kidneys had failed and all organs had shut down. I called my son and told him to meet me at the hospital. I got to the hospital as quickly as possible. They were pumping meds in him to keep him alive and when we got to the hospital they stopped giving him the medication to keep his heart pumping. It was just a short period of time that he passed away. It was the worse night of my life.

I can say nothing good about the way he was treated. I went into ICU to see him one day while he was intubated and he was laying totally naked without even a sheet on him. He was not the only one I saw naked in the ICU; it was if they were just things and not a person suffering from the horrid disease. I even had to tell the nurse that I wanted Jim’s tubes to be cleaned because they were in a horrible condition.

The night my husband died I was standing by his bed and with my sobbing I couldn’t breathe so I slipped my mask down to breathe. The nurse came in and told my son to tell me to pull my mask back up. Nothing in this situation made any sense. While he could talk I couldn’t be with him and when they put him on vent then I could go into his room. I hated this for my husband and the many others that were treated with the hospitals “protocols” and didn’t make it home.

I believe with all my heart had my husband not been given the death drug REMDESIVIR he would have made it through COVID. The very thing he died from is the results of the medication. Had they given him the meds that they knew would help he would be with me today.

Mary Jo Lyon