My husband and I had our anniversary September 7, 2021.  It being a holiday, he made plans for us to take the RV to a campsite on September 4.  On September 5, our grandson tested positive for Covid, and on September 6, my husband tested positive for Covid.

On our 2nd anniversary, September 7, 2021, knowing they both had Covid, I scheduled a doctor’s  appointment and tested positive September 8.

I work out of town, and had a house I had been working on to put up for sale, so I kissed my husband goodbye on our anniversary, thinking, I would get treatment and come back home.

My doctor scheduled me for an antibody infusion on the 9th of September. Before I could get back home, my husband was taken to the emergency room and admitted to the hospital. While my husband was talking to me on the phone, a text came through my phone from my daughter-in-law that my son had been admitted to ICU with Covid pneumonia.

At that moment, my whole world fell apart. I was completely quarantined from my loved ones. The hospital where my husband was at said I could not come, and I could not call them, they would call me. My husband and I texted and talked on the phone for four days. He sounded like he was getting better, and he actually called me on September 14th and told me he was going to be step-down. That was about 1 o’clock.  By 1:30,  he called me back and said he had two doctors in his room wanting to intubate him. I said, “I thought you told me they were going to step you down.  What are you going to do?’

He said, “I don’t know, but I’m scared to death.”  The doctors told him his oxygen was tanking.  He said he was going to call his children. I told him I loved him, and I hung up the phone.

I immediately called the nurses’ station, and I repeated myself twice letting the nurse know that my husband was not a good candidate for Remdesivir, and then I found out that he was on it. I needed a doctor to call me immediately. “My husband has agent orange,” I told her. “He also has nodules all over his organs, and suffers from fatty liver disease.  He should not be taking Remdesivir.  It will kill him!” To appease me, she told me she would have a doctor to call me, however, it would be 2 to 3 hours or so before a doctor could call me, because they are extremely busy with their patients.

I sat there for hours and finally called back after 9 p.m., trying to get an update on my husband.  The nurse that answered the phone was the actual nurse I had talked to earlier. She was aware that my husband told me he was going to get step down  She said, “I heard him tell you that, but I don’t know why he told you that.”

She said, “Your husband was placed on a vent fifteen minutes after our earlier conversation. In fact, it was seven (7) hours earlier.  I was upside down in my emotions. No one called to notify us that he was placed on a ventilator.  Also during his days on the ventilator, I had no idea that he was failing. I did know that he had a fever, and at one point he wasn’t as ticklish he first was. (The nurse asked if he had any other ticklish spots.)

I asked her why he had a fever, and she said, “Well, this happens sometimes when they are on a ventilator.”

On September 22 I was sleeping and the phone woke me up.  A male nurse was on the other line explaining to me that I needed to get there immediately, that my husband had taken a turn for the worse.  I was able to see my husband.  He had become septic, so I only had a few minutes that I could be in the room. Other than that, I stood outside a glass window watching them work on him.

My husband had about 15 bags of medication on his IV tree. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and I could see where they had him tied down.  He appeared clean, I didn’t see blood all over him, so I am thankful for that.

The nurse was crying when she started to talk to me, telling me what a nice man my husband was, and how bad it was breaking her heart. I stood there outside the glass watching them shake my husband telling him, “Come on, Ronnie, come on!” as his heart beats went to nothing.  I left and went back three other times. They would call us in, just to see the same thing over and over again.

On the first trip to the hospital they told us they couldn’t do kidney dialysis because it would kill him.  The second trip, sure enough, they were doing kidney dialysis at bedside. We couldn’t stand in the hallway a real long time, that’s why we had to leave and come back.  Due to Covid, you just couldn’t hang out in the hospital.

It’s incredibly sad to know that I kissed my husband for the last time on our anniversary, believing that everything was going to be okay.  We were going to get treated and we were going to survive.

My doctor chose a different route, and I had very little trouble. With my husband and my son both admitted at the same time, my son was definitely worse than my husband at first. They had to double mask my son on a BiPap, and he was ventilated hoping to save his life. No Remdesivir was given to my son.  My son exhausted himself, and I knew he was getting worse and worse by the day. I had so much hope that my husband was getting better, so it was a big jolt to hear my husband was going to be intubated. I didn’t find out that he was on Remdesivir until the day he was intubated.

I am a 61 year-old woman. My husband was the first boyfriend I ever had in my early teens. He was sent off to Vietnam at age 17, I did not see him for 47 years. We reconnected as if there wasn’t a day between us, got married at the very place he gave me my first kiss. It was a dream come true – until Covid.

It’s so hard for me to believe that our anniversary would be the last time I saw him alive and he was able to speak to me. I am grateful that my son survived, however, I have seen him struggle so hard. I have watched him re-learn to walk and take every step that I watched him take when he was born. He had to learn how to breathe again on his own, how to swallow, how to talk, how to use his hands and legs and feet. He lost 50 pounds, all muscle tone was gone. He had horrific issues coming off the medications they had him on from the coma. He lost his job, he lost his insurance, with a wife and six (6) kids at home. I’ve never seen anyone struggle so hard just to get back up, get back to work.

By the grace of God the company he worked for loved him.  When they saw his 90 days were up and he woke up on the 94th day, the workers pulled together and decided to rehire hm.  When he was able to come back, they gave him six months to return to work. My son went back in three months because he had no other way to survive, financially.

Unfortunately there is no help for those in his case, or if there is, I’ve been told there’s none. My son‘s oxygen drops in the 80s, a year later. He still goes to work although he should’ve been allowed the rights to recover or some type of insurance to cover him.  He was denied respiratory therapy in the hospital because his job lapsed which also included his insurance. This is so unfair!

My boys and everybody else’s family out there deserves justice! Who would ever dream that our own government would do this?  It needs to be held accountable. There should be something put in place to take care of the Covid survivors.

The doctors are afraid with my son‘s oxygen dropping in the 80s that his heart is going to explode. In his mind, my son doesn’t have any choice. I made sure he had medications when he was released. He needs $1000 a month, actually a little more to pay for his medications. Our family has seen that he was taken care of, and I’m grateful for that, but I can never explain to you the pain I’ve had to feel going through this.  I listen to other people’s stories and it absolutely breaks my heart because I know how they feel. Innocent victims deserve help. Thank you.