My Covid-19 journey into the abyss, as I became aware of it, began August 3, 2021. Lee and I successfully managed to avoid it for seventeen months. Assuming if one measures the milestone of the breaking stories of March 2020.

Despite both of us being careful, I finally contracted Covid-19. Although unvaccinated at the time, when out in public settings, I was wearing surgical/N95 masks, or an electronic hybrid mask with built-in UV air flow scrubbing. Mask wearing was also combined with diligent handwashing and cleaning common use surfaces at my office.  I work alone in my office, and we live in a secluded setting in the woods. By default, safe distancing is the norm. To this day, I cannot pinpoint where I was infected, No one in our immediate or casual circles of family, friends, or acquaintances had come down with it within weeks before or after. We avoided large groups and gatherings indoors. I am left to conclude it was either an encounter with an asymptomatic person who was unaware of having it or a contact surface contamination event.  

On the morning of August 3, I did not feel well at all, and I was very achy. I was feeling a bit off from my usual comfort for an overweight, sixty-one-year-old man. I often jokingly state that I like to be my miserable old self when I wake in the morning and that is a guiding perspective that deters me from destructive and addictive behaviors, especially smoking and or substance abuse. All in all, I was in decent health otherwise, with no underlying or major health issues.

I stayed home and worked from my laptop, which I do sometimes. That evening, I ran a fever and showed flu-like symptoms. We had a set of rapid test kits on hand as Lee works in home healthcare and thought it was good to have at the ready for “just in case.” Using one of the rapid response test kits, it yielded a positive result for Covid-19. A quick call back from Dr. Lynn Cunningham (my personal care doctor) had us heading to Upstate Hospital in Syracuse, New York to confirm with a PCR test and to be treated with monoclonal antibodies infusion to get ahead of the infection.

It was late in the evening when we arrived at the emergency room, although not overly crowded, a continual stream of ambulances was arriving. Upstate handles a lion’s share of trauma cases for the county and the city of Syracuse.  Behind the scenes, the place was in full capacity emergency room mode. The triage nurses that I first saw were clearly overstressed and did little to calm my concerns. It was not the friendly and comforting demeanor I typically encounter with medical professionals.

After a prolonged wait in the emergency room, I was eventually seen at 4 a.m., and while there waiting, a doctor walked in and blurted out loudly in a most condescending tone as she left in a huff, “Oh you’re unvaccinated? You’re in for a rough ride!” Again, the lack of a bedside manner did not add a positive vibe to my “Patient at Upstate Hospital” experience.

After a few hours of waiting, I received positive confirmation from the PCR test. The bad news… The hospital determined that I should be admitted to their Community Hospital facility as they had no beds available there. Because of my stats at the time, and wanting to admit me, their protocol prohibited giving me the monoclonal antibodies infusion. I was given an IV, started on steroids, and then transported the short trip over to Community Hospital. It is my reasoned thought that not getting the infusion was detrimental to what would become my deep dive into Covid-19 hell.

At the time, I did not show signs of pneumonia, and they treated my infection without giving preventive treatment for my lungs. My hospital experience at Community improved in a big way and I got the rock star treatment from the army of nurses and aides who tended to my care. I responded well to the IV’s they gave me. The following day, my condition improved and was released to recover at home. I do wonder what would have transpired if they had proactively treated me with prophylactics for foreseeable lung issues.

The following two days, I felt reasonably good although I became increasingly exhausted. During this time, Lee, my wife of twenty-one years, became ill. We got out the other rapid test we had and found that she also tested positive for Covid-19. A call to our doctor prompted the same instructions that I received. Lee drove herself up as they would not allow me to accompany her at the hospital. Given the experience we had with Upstate Hospital, Lee chose to go up to Saint Joseph’s Hospital and was promptly given the monoclonal antibodies infusion after confirming a PCR test. Lee would respond well to the infusion and recovered almost a week later. I am more than thankful that my prayers were answered that she did not have to go down the road I eventually did. She professes that she would have rather it had been her, not me. Without hesitation, I wish my experience for no one, friend or foe, and disagree with her in the strongest terms on swapping places.

On the third day, I had some difficulty breathing and found that sitting in a chair with my CPAP on gave me a measure of relief. I began to feel poorly that evening. Being that it was Sunday, it was thought I would visit my doctor first thing the next day. I woke at 3 a.m. with a spiking fever of 104°F, and I was in poor shape. A quick call to 911 and we met an ambulance at the top of our driveway. We live down in the woods and having a steep 800-foot driveway that made it a difficult request to meet us directly at our doorstep. I was taken directly to the ICU at Guthrie Cortland Hospital and immediately put on oxygen along with the full regimen of Corvid-19 cocktails. My care there was outstanding, and it did much to calm my fears. Lee could not come with me as she had Covid, and it was the one downside to the circumstances we could not control.

A day later, I woke to find out I was being taken to Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania to their ICU specializing in acute Covid-19 care. My stats had dropped dramatically although I did not know it at the time. I would learn later that my oxygen dropped to dangerously low levels, down to 50 percent saturation while on high flow.

I spoke to Lee briefly before they packed me up for transport. As before, she would not be able to go with me. Everyone around me was calm and gave me no reason to worry. I am thankful for that. The ambulance crew did much to ease my mind and made the long trip bearable. Engaging conversation with truly great professionals made the ride go by so much faster. Ninety minutes later, I arrived in Sayre, Pennsylvania and would come to learn in short order as to what would dramatically change my life.

Upon arrival, I was immediately seen by Dr. Faraz Siddiqu. There was little time wasted by the supporting medical staff in taking my stats and setting up my care. It was a very modern ICU unit and looked to be built in recent years. Within several minutes, the doctor came back into my ICU room and spoke to me directly with the most calm, confident, but deliberate delivery of bad news I needed to hear. “I reviewed your case, your stats, and it is my diagnosis that your best course of action to survive this is to be intubated while we heal your lungs. You have a ten to twenty percent chance of surviving this.”

I asked him, “What are my chances if I don’t?”

In the same most effective and professional manner, he said, “You have none.”

At that moment it hit me like a sledgehammer, and it was now clear that I was in peril, that I may die from this virus. I immediately responded, “Do what you have to do doctor.” He asked for my permission to intubate me, and I said yes, but was barely able to say it. I was handed a phone and they had Lee on the line, I could barely talk as fear overcame me, and I could do little to contain my emotions.

Saying “I love you” to Lee would be my last utterance in this life, I thought to myself as I handed back the phone.

I was immediately swarmed by what can only be described as a pit crew at a NASCAR race. Tables of medical hardware centered in on me from every direction. I spotted the throat tube and decided I didn’t need to be looking at it. Unknowingly, a nurse had already given me an IV and said, “You’re going to feel something col…” I never heard the “d” completing the word… 

I am grateful beyond words for their expediency, dedication to immediate action, and not allowing me to consciously ponder the worse possibility.

That is the last memory based in reality that I have of being in the ICU room. What is to follow is a recollection of alternate lifetimes I experienced while in an induced coma for the next eighteen days.