‘I didn’t know if he was going to make it’
(Part 1 of 3) “To be honest, we didn’t think COVID was that bad. It seemed like a lot of people getting sick got over it, and they weren’t hospitalized. I got COVID in August 2020. I lost my taste and smell. That’s it. When the vaccine came out, we weren’t ready to get it because it was so new. We always wore masks, though.
“Then on March 31, Justin woke up with a fever and chills. When he got tested, he was positive. A few days went by, and he kept throwing up. So he went to the ER. His oxygen levels were good, but he had a little bit of pneumonia. Overnight, he got much worse, so I took him to the ER again. His oxygen saturation was 58%. A normal level is 95%. He was admitted to the hospital on April 7. He had a severe case of pnuemonia. Five days later, he was intubated and placed on a ventilator. They told me that it wasn’t looking good.”
By the end of April, his condition had improved slightly. But after being transferred to an acute care facility, “everything went downhill. He had two collapsed lungs. He had ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome]. And he was in pulmonary failure. His lungs had been so damaged from pneumonia and COVID. He was very ill.
“They placed two chest tubes in his right lung and one in his left lung to help with drainage. He was sedated from May 25 to July 5 to keep him calm and allow his lungs to heal. Eventually, as things improved, they took out all the chest tubes and were able to wean him off the ventilator.
“Finally, on Aug. 18, he was able to come home. He was in the hospital 133 days. It was tough. I would never want anybody to have to go through this. Doctors told me he was the youngest patient they’d seen with such a severe case. There were days when I didn’t know if he was going to make it.”
— Lauryn Cook
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