Jim was sick on Christmas Day.  We took a COVID-19 test and it was positive.  We were able to get meds on Sunday, late evening.  He wasn’t getting any better.

On Wednesday, we found a place to get the monoclonal antibodies and my daughter drove him to get them an hour away. He was on oxygen; my elderly mother had an oxygen in case she needed it so he was using it. The EMTs locally gave us some portable tanks so we could get him there.

He came home from that, and the next two days we called the EMTs to check him. His oxygen level wasn’t great, but they kept saying he’d be okay.  New Year’s Eve, we had the ambulance take him to the ER.  He had passed out twice in the night.

They asked us if we were okay with using a ventilator. Our answer was if it would save his life, but no we don’t want to do that.  They admitted him. That was a Friday.  I then had the EMTs come check me on Sunday.  My oxygen was low, so I went to the ER. They admitted me with COVID-19.

My daughter was able to be with Jim, and my son was with me.  I was only kept for a week and then released.  I was able to be with Jim towards the end. They would not do anything I asked for him. He kept getting worse.

One day when I got to the hospital, they said that Jim wanted to be put on the ventilator. I was not there to hear what the doctors said.  I do know that I ended up signing a consent for it, only because Jim thought he needed it and it would help him.  I could not think straight and didn’t know what to do. It’s just so hard to think they would do anything to hurt him.

The nurse on the night shift would always tell me he was getting the numbers lowered and that was a good sign.  Then the next morning a different nurse would say, we had to turn it up again. He went into cardiac arrest one day and they were able to save him.  They said his kidneys were shutting down, but if they put him on dialysis it would for sure kill him.

They stopped giving him IV fluids and feeding him, so when we asked why they said, he had so much fluid they couldn’t give him more.  They wanted us to do the comfort care and just let him die; I couldn’t understand what to think.  It was too much to believe.

His heart gave out and I had said don’t put him through resuscitation again. So I have been feeling guilty from my decisions in so many ways.