It has been almost a year since Shane and I (and our families and friends) went through the trauma of my near death after getting Covid while being 8.5 months pregnant and on the verge of preeclampsia.
It was a perfect storm, I suppose. My body was already doing what it could to protect the precious life inside and Covid, as we now know, is a nasty virus that doesn't play fair.
Since I was being watched closely for preeclampsia, there had already been 2 other times that my OB wanted to do a c-section right away to make sure all was well, but I was so determined to give birth naturally on account Emma was a c-section and I wanted a chance to have many children. (My dream is 5-7).
It was Saturday, December 18, 2021. A full week before Christmas. The pregnancy was going OK considering the occasional high blood pressure and I was feeling a little chilled. Shane's family was having a little Christmas gathering and I felt especially exhausted, and I just couldn't quite get warm. Which, being that I was 8.5 months pregnant, being warm was never an issue. Shane offered to take Emma to the Christmas gathering and give me the evening to rest. While he was gone, I took my temperature and it was 100.1. Not even really a fever. By the time Shane and Emma got back, the fever had ended and I was feeling much better.
The following Monday, December 20, I went in for a non-stress test to continue to monitor for preeclampsia. Since I had narrowly escaped a c-section the previous Friday and they had suggested Tuesday c-section, I brought Shane with me, so he could help me make a decision about having a baby before, or after Christmas. My brother has a birthday on Dec. 22nd and I watched him sometimes get his birthday celebrated on his birthday, but most the time have to travel or have a Christmas celebration on his birthday. I didn't want that for my son.
At this check-up they asked if I had had any covid symptoms since I was there on Friday and I mentioned I had a tiny tiny fever for 2 hours on Saturday. They did a Covid test and it came back positive. They told me to isolate for 10 days and then we'd probably do a C-section, unless I went into labor, then we could try for a natural birth if my blood pressure wasn't too high.
That night I developed a cough. By the next day Tuesday, I had my OB call in an inhaler because I felt like the coughing would put stress on the baby. Tuesday night the cough was especially bad and Wednesday morning I called shane (Who had already gone to work) and asked him to take me to the ER. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable with the amount of coughing I was doing and I wanted to get some monitors on the baby just to know he was doing okay. I just didn't feel like I was getting enough air for me and the baby.
It was now Wednesday, December 22nd. (Happy birthday to my brother). We dropped Emma off at Shane's mom's and headed to the ER. Of course with COVID they stopped us at the door and kicked Shane out without knowing if he had Covid or not because he was exposed to me.
So I got put in a room alone where they did blood draws and an IV line. The IV line never felt right. I told the nurse it was burning a little and she poked my arm and said, "no, it's working ok".
They decided to do a CT scan with contract. The CT tech decided to use my IV line since my veins are hard to fine. The vein blew while I was in the machine. I am no stranger to my veins getting blown, but I cannot even put into words the excruciating pain that followed. My senior year of highschool, I was thrown off a horse and broke my wrist in 5 places. I would rather do that again than have experienced the pain that went through my arm that day. It felt like my arm had shattered and the muscles tore apart. The tech pulled me from the machine and asked if he could try contrast in my other arm. I told him I couldn't take the risk again. So he wheeled me back to my isolated room in the ER. The OB on call came down and said we needed to get baby out regardless. She explained that I was high risk for seizures now and that I could lose the baby or I could die and they might save the baby or we'd just lose both me and baby.
Obviously saving baby's life was highest priority so I texted Shane and said we were going to do a c-section. Being that it was covid, they weren't going to let Shane near me or baby for several days. It was really difficult to be told that, even for the surgery.. everything. I had no idea how I was supposed to do any of that alone. Thankfully, My sister in Omaha (4 hours away) had recently gotten over covid herself, and she volunteered to come watch Emma. The nurses came in shortly before noon and said they found some covid antibodies and I could have them. They explained they never carry these and they didn't really know how they happened to be there but they'd like to do an infusion. Thankfully, the nurse that did the second IV on my un-damaged arm got it right and it went well. I was scheduled for a c-section at 3pm.
Since Shane was not allowed anywhere near me or the baby, we asked the nurse's if there was any way I could not have to be alone for all this and they said I needed someone who didn't live with us and hadn't been exposed to me since I had tested positive. We asked our friend Kerri if she could come and she was more than willing. She arrived shortly before 3. They then told me that another c-section was happening that was more serious so mine would now be 7pm. In the meantime, they had me in pre-op room on the labor and delivery floor. They medical staff spent the next several hours poking me trying to find a good draw sight for some more labs and eventually deciding I needed some oxygen, so they hooked me up. Someone at some point came in to question why I wasn't covid vaccinated and I mostly remember just wanting to get baby out so he would be OK. My sister, Rose, arrived to the hospital and they had her wait somewhere else so she would be able to take the baby after he was born since she was healthy. They had run out of places to poke on all my arms and hands and wrist sites and I remember them making attempts on my feet when the OB came back and said the OR was ready but at this point she didn't want to risk something going down hill with the Covid. She determined I needed to deliver, but at the other bigger hospital. 17 attempts had been made at getting a blood draw and they were all painful, so I was more than happy to try something else. The EMTs arrived and put me on a stretcher and they wheeled me out to an ambulance and took me across town.
Shane had a negative Covid test by that point and the U of I hospital said he could be present for the birth. When I arrived at check-in, they made my stretcher people wait for 30 minutes while the medical staff suited up for a Covid patient. Once checked in, they managed a successful blood draw and then it was a matter of waiting for the OR to be prepped. by 10:30, Shane arrived and shortly after 11pm they wheeled me into OR and got me prepped for the c-section.
At 11:47pm Caspian joined us with the screaming lung capacity of 3 babies all his own and a full head of red, curly hair. He was beautiful. Shane held him up for me to see and then he and baby went back to the recovery room. It was a full hour before they had me all stitched up and wheeled back to see Shane and baby.
Of this part, I only remember bits and pieces. Caspian was in a warming bed that reminded me of an incubator. Shane was commenting how well he was sleeping. Everything was double. The clock had two faces, the nurse had two heads, and they finally gave me some ice chips. I had been thirsty since they had taken my water away 15 hours before and the touch of ice on my tongue was delicious.
Shane tells me Caspian slept most the night and nursed really well. The following day we enjoyed a nice recovery day, ordering food in for lunch and nursing little Caspy. I don't remember it.
Sometime during the end of the day, my oxygen began to drop again and they turned my oxygen up. Shane says they moved him and Caspian out to do some chest xrays and then determined I needed to go to the ICU to receive higher doses of oxygen. I think I was moved to ICU around 1am December 24th.
They gave me as much oxygen as they could and ran tests and its all so vague and hard to remember.
Sometime around 8am they determined I was losing my battle with Covid. They told me a normal person takes 9-20 breaths per minute and I was up at 40 to 60 breaths per minute. They were giving me as much oxygen as they could but it wasn't enough. The doctors told me that our best and only option was to intubate and go into a medical coma for a few weeks to give my lungs a chance. But even still, they didn't guarantee that would save me.
They told me I had maybe a few hours before my lungs would give up and id lose oxygen to my brain and the rest of my body would shut down. Hours before my life on earth would be a happy memory. They told me i needed to call my husband to tell him what was going on. Shane did not answer and it went to voicemail. I told him I loved him and that if i never saw him again on this side of heaven I wanted him to know he was a good dad and a good husband. I thanked him for taking care of Emma and Caspian and said goodbye.
Shane called me back after I'd hung up with his voicemail, so I got to say goodbye to him over the phone. We then did a video call with my family and I got to say goodbye to my parents and siblings as well. And when the phone call ended, one nurse took my phone and a whole team of doctors and nurses were at the ready. they laid me back, put a gas mask over my mouth and nose and my world went black.
I was at peace. I knew I was either going to wake up in the presence of Jesus, or I was going to wake back up in the hospital all better and going home to my husband and little ones.
All was black in my world when I saw a figure lit up at the end of a hallway. The figure was dressed in a medical gown with a facemask, so there was nothing that could be visually recognized on my end, but when he spoke, I just knew, it was Jesus. I suddenly felt like I'd dreamed about earth, and being married and having children. Like it was a pleasant, happy dream. But just a fuzzy memory. I felt vividly real, more real and more aware than ever before. Jesus offered, "If you make it to the door, I'll let you in." But when I took a step toward the door at the end of the hallway, I was suddenly yanked back and transported to my hospital bed in the ICU. And as if it was whispered into my brain, I heard "Too many people are praying for you to stay."
Things are a little fuzzy on *WHEN* my brain was actively hearing conversations happening miles away, but, somehow, someway I have very vivid memories of things that took place while I was in a coma. I never saw anything, I just could hear people talking, like a radio. I heard my family saying they needed to add a board to the table because the puzzle they were working on was too big.
I got to hear my sister video chat with my cousins while they watched my daughter playing on the couch. Sometimes I would look around my room to see if there was a phone that somehow connected to the outside world and was picking up the conversations. However, I had extremely limited head movement and the only things I could see was the TV in my room playing informercials and the machines keeping me alive.
But I was so comforted by the voices of my family, I was content to just listen to their blips of conversations, although I wasn't catching the full content enough to entirely figure out what was going on. Wildest of all was hearing my cousin talk about getting a $60 plane ticket and trying to decide how she was going to use it. I asked about it after I was off the ventilator and had access to my phone again and my cousin was shocked I knew about it because she had only told her mom about it and no one else. We joke a little bit about how I haunted everyone's Christmas on accident.
They brought me out of the coma on a Tuesday Morning long enough for me to do some physical therapy, and receive a visit from my sister, Pearl, and church pastor. They put me under for another day and woke me up early on Wednesday morning. Then I was just awake and on the ventilator until Saturday. Those days were pure miserable. My hands were tied to the bed so I wouldn't panic and pull out the tubing, the tubing in my throat hurt so badly and would sometimes clog with fluid and they'd have to do "Deep suction." Essentially, they'd have to cut off my breathing for a bit for my whole body would cough and it felt like I'd die for a few seconds. That happened over and over and over for those days and nights that I continued on the ventilator. Plus, with my hands tied up, I didn't have access to my call button, so I'd just be choking on fluid and waiting for all the alarms and beeping to go off so the nurse team would rush in my room to clear my airway.
Pearl visited me twice and then Shane got to come see me for a precious few hours a day. I'd ask to have the tube out every day and every day they'd tell me "Not yet." There were days I didn't know if I'd ever see the outside of the ICU again. At some point a nurse figured out I could write and let my restraints go enough for me to communicate. That made me feel a little more human.
It was New Years Day when they nurses came in and said I'd be getting off the ventilator and switching to a CPAP for a few days. I was SO excited. It was painful, they just did a "One, two, three, yank out the tube" situation and my throat felt so violated. But at last I was free and not choking on tubing with my mouth propped open and dried out. I asked them if I could get discharged to go home and was told that they would discharge me to a recovery room somewhere else in the hospital, and they were very glad to say that because most young mom's with covid who have a baby and then go on the ventilator are most often discharged to hospice or to the morgue, without having met their babies. That was so very sobering to hear.
They gave me ice chips and it was heaven. I'd felt like a dessert for so long. However, I'd forgotten how to safely swallow and it did not help that Shane was cracking jokes and making me laugh none-stop. The nurse ended up telling Shane to cut it out and took away my ice chips because she was worried Shane was causing me un-do stress. That first day off the vent was so refreshing. They took the IV out of my neck and also one out of my left arm. They kept one in my right arm "Just in case". Having movement in my hands again and a little more mobility in my neck. It was wild to be able to look around my room and see more than just the top half of the TV and the ominous blue stain on the ceiling that I had been staring at for the past several days. That night they let me stand by my bed for the first time and it was such a wild/ unfamiliar feeling to be out of that bed.
The oxygen specialist was in awe that after 5 hours on the CPAP, they found I was breathing so well that they upgraded me to a granular (Just a little nose oxygen thing) and I was eligible to leave the ICU. I was too excited to sleep. They told me it was just a matter of when a bed opened up somewhere else in the hospital. As the sun came up the next day and I was still awake, waiting to get out of the ICU, I had to force myself to wait until 8am to start texting Shane and telling him to hurry up and visit so he'd know where my new room was. They let me move to a chair beside my bed to let me have a change of scene and breathe while sitting up straighter. It was better for my lungs that way. However, my IV got ripped out of my right arm while moving, so they had to try to find a vein for a new one. They blew another one in the left arm but had success in my hand.
I think Shane arrived close to 9am and usually, visiting hours are limited to 4 hours when you're a COVID patient. But the nurses were all so very kind and said Shane should stick around to see where they moved me. Poor Shane, hung out with me all day, which meant he didn't get to eat anything.
I couldn't get my voice to make any noise, so I was limited to whispering or writing on the paper I had. Shane patiently listened to my whispers and ordered various "Clear liquids" for me to try and practice swallowing. I hadn't eaten Jello in about 20 years and for the first thing I ate in 2 weeks, I found it to be delicious. As was the warm broth and frozen sherbet. Finding I new taste for jello, i thought maybe after all these years I suddenly liked yogurt too. That one is still a no-go. It is disgusting. Not solid, not liquid and like a sweetened soured milk. No thank you.
Anyways, I was moved to my new room in the hospital at about 6pm, at which time Shane had to leave to take care of our children.
The nurse who took me on trusted me well enough to let me take a shower, which was the most magical feeling. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd showered even before going into the hospital, and I'd been there a week and a half. They even let me put on my comfy jammies after all that was done. I could not believe the absolute luxury. I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
However, at the nurse shift change, my new nurse was not about me hanging out in my jammies and feeling comfortable. She said if I was going to be a patient in the hospital, then I was going to be treated like a patient in the hospital, and the granular oxygen I had attached to my nose and all the little wires that were attached in various places to monitor my heart were not enough. She checked the little IV port they'd left in my hand, and it wasn't bleeding and said it was worthless and that I needed a new IV.
She made me switch back into a hospital gown and hooked up more things. They brought in a special team to get an IV in but they couldn't find a good one. They left around midnight with no success and all I could remember was absolutely shaking with cold. But I had no voice so there was no way to ask for another blanket or heat. The cranky nurse that was anti-enjoying the hospital came in at about 4am and told me she didn't care how much I didn't like it, she was going to get an IV in no matter what. And with that, she aggressively shoved the needle into my left wrist and thankfully had success on the first attempt.
Her shift ended at 7am and thankfully, all my nurses after that were very sweet and gentle and so excited to get me home to "My little Prince". They asked me if my baby was cute, but I had no memory of meeting him or seeing his face. I just couldn't wait to go home and meet him and hold him. I asked Shane if there was any way he could bring Caspian to the hospital, but there was a very strict "One visitor" policy, and they wouldn't let Caspian in. So I spent those next days, practicing walking around my room, practicing breathing deeply with my diaphragm, practicing swallowing my ice chips and pills. I worked with a physical therapist, and occupational therapist and a speech pathologist. I passed my breathing tests, my walking tests, my coordination tests and was very proud. I passed all my swallowing tests, but I just couldn't get my voice to make any sound. But I started learning how to cough again and the act of coughing seemed to help mobilize my vocal cords enough to make little amounts of sound.
FINALLY on January 6, the doctor came in and told me I was good to go home and had some parting instructions. It was absolutely glorious when Shane arrived with my coat and shoes and it was time to go home and meet my now 2-week-old baby.
We were sent home with blood thinner shots that Shane had to give me twice a day, and a blood pressure cuff and an oximeter and other various things to help keep me alive and monitor my recovery.
Shane took me straight away to his mom's house where she was blessedly watching Shane and I's kids, and 5 of our nephews. But Debby put little Prince Caspian in my hands, and I cried for joy. He was a little over 6lbs. I should say, I was so very worried he would be the size of a 3-month-old by the time I met him because my sister (Along with her husband and children) moved into my house while I was in the hospital, and she took on the noble task of nursing Caspian along with her own 2-month-old and my sister's milk makes babies solid.
Caspian had also received donated milk from other mama's in our community and I am *SO VERY THANKFUL* because it gave Caspian the very best start to life. And too, it took a good 6 weeks for me to recover well enough to take on the task of nursing him myself.
Recovering at home was no small task. Finding the strength and breath to go up or down a set of stairs took everything I had. I was limited to 10lbs of lifting due to the c-section and so parenting a toddler who couldn't be picked up but also having no voice to talk to her was so frustrating and difficult.
Thankfully, my mother-in-law stayed many days/nights with us to help me get rest and take care of the children. I had family circulating in and out of our house. People brought us food and baby clothes and cleaned my house.
My sister-in-law quit her job at a daycare and came over every day to help me care for my children and clean up my house, and even administer a shot or two if Shane was gone.
Shane and I are so very, VERY thankful for all the prayers people prayed on our behalf. Thousands of you prayed. Across the world. So many churches in so many states and countries and cities, I wish I could meet everyone and thank them in person, but the sheer number of lovely people who spoke to the Lord on behalf of me, my husband and children is just astronomical.
We are thankful for the financial support we were given with all the days Shane took off work.
We are so very thankful for the meals brought over and the milk donations for Caspian. Thankful for everyone who held my little man when I wasn't there and when I wasn't strong enough. Thankful for every dish that was washed, and clothing item folded, and baby diaper changed. So many people did so many things for us and we felt so very loved.
Here we are, a year later. Approaching a surgery to finally fix my vocal cords and hope to sound "Normal" again.
Looking forward to Caspian's first birthday and his second Christmas. And we are thankful every day for how God has truly blessed us and given us a life we don't deserve.
