Patient coming back to life from covid 19 how to#
Ramirez is slowly regaining strength and learning how to breathe with her new lungs. Her doctors say it will be at least a year before she can function independently and be as active as before. Ramirez eagerly looks forward to being able to spend more time with her family, her boyfriend and her dogs and serving the immigrant community through her legal work.īut for now, her days are consumed by rehab. She’s now receiving in-home nursing assistance as well as physical and occupational therapy, and she’s working on finding a psychologist. “I was overjoyed to see her.”Īfter weeks of inpatient rehabilitation, Ramirez was discharged home. “The first thing I did was just tear up,” Ramirez said. When COVID-19 restrictions loosened at the hospital in mid-June, her mother was finally able to visit. And that’s me.”Īfter a few weeks, Ramirez said, she finally understood what happened to her. “It was weeks later, actually, that I took a second look and realized, ‘Hey, that’s my grandmother. “I was actually sort of upset about it, ‘Who are these strangers and why are their pictures in my room?’” Ramirez said. Her family had sent photos to post by her hospital bed, and Ramirez said she couldn’t recognize anyone in the pictures. She recalled being sad that her mother wasn’t with her in the hospital, not understanding that visitors weren’t allowed because of the pandemic. It was frustrating, but at the time I didn’t have the cognitive ability to process what was going on,” Ramirez said. When Ramirez woke up after the operation, she was disoriented, could barely move her body and couldn’t speak. And early research shows that up to half of COVID patients on ventilators survive the illness and are likely to recover on their own.īut for some, like Ramirez, Bharat said, a transplant can be a lifesaving option of last resort. In fact, I can say without hesitation, the sickest patient I ever transplanted.”īharat said most COVID-19 patients will not be candidates for transplants because of their age and other health conditions that decrease the likelihood of success. “Most patients are quite sick going into lung transplant,” Bharat said in an interview in June. Ankit Bharat, Northwestern Medicine’s chief of thoracic surgery, performed the 10-hour procedure. She thanked God all went well, and for giving her the strength to make it through.ĭr. Her mother agreed, and within 48 hours of being listed for transplant, a donor was found and the successful procedure was performed on June 5.Īt a recent news conference held by Northwestern Memorial, Romero shared in Spanish that there were no words to describe the pain of not being by her daughter’s side as she struggled for her life. Ramirez was a candidate for a double lung transplant, they said, although the procedure had never been done on a COVID patient in the U.S.
When they arrived, the doctors told Ramirez’s mother, Nohemi Romero, that there was one last thing they could try. Her family was told she might not make it through the night, so her mother and sisters caught the first flight from North Carolina to Chicago to say goodbye. She began showing signs that her kidneys and liver were starting to fail, with no improvement in her lung function. One theory about why Ramirez became so sick is that she has a neurological condition that is treated with steroids, drugs that can suppress the immune system.īy early June, Ramirez was at risk of further decline. In this photo taken before the transplant, Mayra Ramirez is being monitored by the ECMO team at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Ramirez knew she was about to be placed on a ventilator, but she didn’t understand exactly what that meant. She was given 10 minutes to explain her situation over the phone to her mother in North Carolina and appoint her to make medical decisions on her behalf. The staff at Northwestern checked her vitals and found her oxygen levels were extremely low. And that’s when I decided to go into the emergency room.” “I wasn’t able to walk long distances without falling over. In late April, she started experiencing chronic spasms, diarrhea, loss of taste and smell, and a slight fever. Ramirez had been working from home since mid-March, hardly leaving the house, so she has no idea how she contracted the coronavirus. She enjoyed walking her dogs and running 5K races.
(Northwestern Medicine)īefore the pandemic, Ramirez worked as a paralegal for an immigration law firm in Chicago. She’s unsure how she contracted COVID-19.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Mayra Ramirez began working from home.
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