I caught Covid at work. Before I knew I had it, I had given it to my son, Michael and my husband, John. My positive test was on the Monday after Christmas. Michael and I recovered. By the following Monday, John was in London at St. Josephs Hospital. His doctors said he was there in plenty of time. He was on ‘room’ air for a week, then moved to a different floor where he could have ‘high’ air. They did the drug treatment and the antibodies and at first expected him to be home by Saturday. I wasn’t allowed to stay with him, of course, but had his phone and we texted back and forth.

This is all too hard to write. At the end of his second week, he was placed on a c-pap. His lungs had filled with sepsis and blood clots. They had to turn the pressure up enough to force the oxygen into his struggling lungs. He developed a pneumothorax- a hole in his lung- from the pressure. He said it felt like a panic attack and it seemed like the whole floor of nurses dashed in to take care of him. That was the day he texted our daughter Stacy, “It is mostly boring here, but sometimes very exciting.” After that he was placed on a ventilator. Before they sedated him, he wrote out, “Darlene, I love you. JPH” on a sheet of paper the nurse gave him. I had it framed so he can tell me he loves me every day.

You can only stay so long on a ventilator before it starts working against you. He couldn’t get a tracheotomy because of the tube coming out of his lung; he was too medically fragile for surgery. His doctor explained that no surgeon would agree to surgery if the patient would die on the table, as they were certain John would.
His last week in ICU they finally let Michael and me visit for a while. I realize what a blessing this was… most people did not get the chance to sit with their loved ones since Covid. I thank the doctors and nurses at St. Joseph for that privilege. John was heavily sedated and didn’t know we were there. I wanted to climb in bed with him and hold him, but had to settle for hugging him around all his tubes. A priest gave him last rites for the Catholic Church on our 37th wedding anniversary. I refused to take him off the ventilator on that day, but came back to the hospital on the next. His nurse told me that all the nurses who had taken care of him were crying and upset that they hadn’t been able to save him. I said, “he must have been a good patient” … and she said, “That’s not it. We are all upset because he loves you so much and was so worried about you.”

I left the room while they disconnected the tubes and equipment. When I came back, I held his hand hugged him while he took his last breaths. He just stopped breathing. No struggle. Just peaceful rest. His heart kept beating, his pacemaker doing its duty even after his lungs could not. His nurse used a magnet to quiet the device… and my John was gone.