My name is Lori Ann Dowell, wife of Michael Anthony Dowell, whom I lost on November  27, 2021.

We were both diagnosed with Covid 19 on November 15th.  We were notified by our family doctor to go to Breckinridge Memorial Hospital on the following morning, November 16th, to start infusions.  This would be a five day process of once a day IV infusions.  We were under the impression these infusions were antibiotics.  Upon arrival at the hospital, it was discovered that my husband, Michael, was much sicker than I was.  He was taken to the ER immediately to start treatment while I was being given my 1st infusion.

Even after finishing with my treatment, I was not allowed to be with my husband.  Later on that evening, a nurse called and said that I could come and stay with him so I did.  He didn’t want me to spend the night, but I continued to see him the next day and the next while he was on oxygen.

A nurse called me about 2 or 3 in the morning of Friday of this same week, and informed me he was having to be intubated due to severely low oxygen levels.  The doctor tried for several hours to try and find a hospital to take him because Breckinridge was not equipped for intubated patients.

Owensboro Hospital could take him later that day and he was flown from our local hospital to Owensboro. I never got to be with him after that point and he was never again able to speak to me.  There was a glass window and door that I could look though once a day for a few hours and a telephone I could talk to him on.  He never again while I was there, opened his eyes or made any movement to acknowledge my voice. The nurse said it was due to deep sedation.

As the days went on, the nurse would just tell me there was no improvement and his doctor told the nurse to show me the deterioration of his lungs and that the ventilator was doing all of the breathing for him.

Then his doctor called me and told me they had done all they could do medically because his organs were shutting down and his kidneys were completely failing.  The doctor then asked me what I wanted to do from that point, so I had to make the decision to turn off his life support on November 27, 2021.

My best friend in this whole world from the time I was 14 yrs old was gone from this world and my life.  We were married for 37 years.