Thankful for the gift of life

The stories of people whose loved ones died because of COVID-19 are heartbreaking. To have your family member pass away in a hospital where you cannot share their last moments must be truly agonizing. The pain that others have endured this year has caused me to be thankful for things that I previously would not have seen as a blessing. This year I feel eternally grateful that my husband will be in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. I will be honored to spend time with him there on the fourth Thursday in November, instead of eating a meal with a lot of our family. I am overjoyed that my spouse is hospitalized because this indicates that he is still in the land of the living.

There are so many people whose loved ones have passed away because of the coronavirus. In some families, the pandemic has caused the deaths of 5 or 6 relatives. This is so unimaginable and has got to be hard to bear. This is why I view my husband's hospitalization differently. Five weeks ago my husband had a stroke but was alert and talking. He had been having some vision problems earlier in the day but we th0ught it was related to other issues and had no way to realize what was truly going on. The first doctor told him he had a blood clot but it was too dangerous to give him the medication to clear it up. Because they did not remove the clot my spouse had another stroke and this time severe damage was done. They said it was a massive stroke that damaged 80% of the right side of his brain.

He became unresponsive and lay in the bed with his eyes closed and they put a feeding tube in his nose. A week later they said he was skipping breaths which was weakening his heart and placed him on a ventilator. A few days after this my children and I were called to a meeting with palliative care. They announced that he could only stay on the ventilator for up to 2 weeks. They wanted us to tell them around day 10 if they should remove it and let him pass peacefully. We told them that he was a fighter and would want everything done to save his life. They pointed out that he might stop breathing once they removed the vent hose and his body was in no condition for CPR which again implied let him die.

One nurse said my husband might live a while on the ventilator in a nursing home, but would probably be brought back to the hospital many times because of complications such as infection and pneumonia. We asked about options and they said they could do a tracheotomy but the doctors insisted that he may not have the quality of life he once knew if kept alive in this manner. Four days later they removed the ventilator and inserted a tracheotomy in his throat.

Doctors said he probably would not get much better several nurses said they would not want to live that way. Even the chaplains made me feel like there was no hope and kept trying to prepare me for death. A few days later, however, my husband began breathing on his own, but while I was giving thanks my phone rang. It was a member of the palliative care team who suggested that even though he was breathing on his own, he had other health issues and it did not look good. He suggested we stop the feeding tube and make him comfortable. In other words, let him die.

I told him that since my spouse was breathing on his own, in spite of what doctors said, who knew what other miracles he might experience. The next day at the hospital I told them that my family was not going to determine the date of my husband's death because we did not have the right to do so. They agreed to give us time and see how he was doing and revisit the situaiton a little later. They removed the feeding tube from his nose and inserted one in his abdomen which can stay in place longer. My husband lay unresponsive for 4 or 5 days and one nurse suggested that he might be brain dead and said the doctors should do a scan. She too emphasized the quality of life and said my spouse probably would not want to live like this.

As if to prove her wrong, the next morning he opened his eyes and has been opening them, each day since and he remains awake a little longer. He can grip our hands pretty strongly when we ask if he knows we are there and seems to have regained some feeling in his left arm and leg which were affected. Braindead people do not squeeze your hand and move around in the bed. Braindead people do not yawn, cough, and sneeze. My husband is fighting so what can I do but fight with and for him. I am thankful this season that my family never gave up. My children and I along with my brother in law and his wife have been supporting each other so I am thankful for a supportive family.

Today my husband's brother went to the hospital and shaved him. We are blessed that the hospital allows one visitor every 24 hours because some facilities will not allow any visitors and I cannot imagine not being able to see him. I am sorry for the pain of those who cannot see their loved ones but thankful that I can visit my spouse. I am also allowed to come back multiple times on any day that I have been cleared to visit. I am thankful that with all of this going back and forth to the hospital my spouse and I and our family have remained COVID free. I have also remained healthy and that is a blessing. Had we ended his life prior to his breathing on his own, his death would have been on our hands and we would never have experienced the daily miracles we now see.

My husband is a 63 year old black male and has been diagnosed with several conditions that are supposed to make him more susceptible to COVID. He has tested negative each time. Statistics indicate that he would be at high risk of not coming off of a ventilator alive, but he did. He has a long way to go but for today, he is living and breathing on his own. He is making small steps in recovery when medical science said there was no chance. This Thanksgiving I am truly grateful for the gift of life. I was told I would be a widow by now but my husband is still here.

We call him Miracle Mike because he is beating the odds slowly but surely. This is why I am thankful to spend the holiday by his bedside in the hospital. There are far too many people who will have loved ones missing from their dinner table because they have passed on. There are those whose only contact with their spouses or other relatives this holiday will be to place a wreath on a grave and talk to the ground. I don't know what the future holds, but I am thankful, in 2020 that I can go to the hospital to see my husband on Thanksgiving day and not visit him in the cemetery. For this, I am elated and extremely thankful.

I update this story to say that my husband passed away at home on March 7, 2021. He made it 4 months after I first wrote this story and did not leave this earth until he and God were ready. I am thankful my family fought for him and although he did not come back the way we wanted him to we still saw miracles and we did not make the choice of the day he would leave us.