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• Gov. urged to protect tenants - 2 • More on COVID-19 survival - 3 • Op: Don’t hold Biden hostage - 4
Kateland Woodcock
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • May 27, 2020
Richmond & Hampton Roads
LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE
From darkness to light: COVID-19 survivor shares her story as a patient and clinical trials participant a plane. The weight of the air was on my chest, and I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “My vision was cloudy, blurred.” In the bathroom, White missed the toilet, fell and injured her ankle. She tried calling out to her husband, but she couldn’t scream. Back in her bedroom, everything was blurry. “Everything on my nightstand looked like it was falling off. I’m trying to hold everything, so nothing’ll fall, and then it hit me — this stuff isn’t moving,” she said. “It’s me.” That’s when she dialed 9-1-1. At the hospital, White had a fever and was diagnosed with COVID-19. Isolated in her room following safety precautions, her only connection to her large, close-knit family was through video chats and calls. “It’s such a darkness with this illness,” White said. “It’s such a dark place, and it’s confusing.”
By JACKIE KRUSZEWSKI It started with a rash. Henrico resident Kathy White, 61, began feeling sick in March. When she discovered a rash on her arms and legs, she visited her local clinic, fearing an infection. Diagnosed with bronchitis, she was sent home with medication. But these were the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. White’s primary care physician recommended she be tested. The number of cases had been going up, and White was coughing. White and her husband drove to Hampton for the test. Symptoms worsen White’s cough quickly worsened, and her body temperature wouldn’t regulate. “I had on two pair of flannel pajamas, a flannel robe, two pair of footies, two blankets, sitting in front of the heater and I could not warm up,” she said. “And I just kept coughing.” One night she woke up to a sensation she said she’d never forget. “I got up to go to the bathroom, and it was like the change in altitude on
Staying strong for family “I kept a lot to myself because I wanted to be strong for my family,” White recalled. “I held so much in. I was telling my family, ‘Everything’s fine, everything’s fine.’ But I was sick.” The damage to her lungs made talking exhausting. Trying to maintain a positive outlook added to her fatigue. It was hard not to dwell on the plans she’d made for spring. White and her husband were supposed to go to Texas to see their kids and grandchildren. A long-time dream to attend a horse race with girlfriends was cancelled. And White had a backyard cookout planned for her husband’s birthday, a playlist of his favorite music already assembled. White credits nurses for getting her through the lonely, isolating experience of hospital quarantine. They created a sitcom-style family with roles and campy scenarios. One nurse brought her product for her hair. When another nurse spent an hour at her bedside administering the clinical trial drug sarilumab, they danced to a playlist White had compiled for her husband’s birthday. “I had four nurses,” White said. “I don’t think I would have pulled through if it weren’t for them.” “Minutes into meeting Ms. White, I could tell she had a great sense of humor and we were going to get along seamlessly. We made the best of a bad time together,” said Elizabeth Cox, one of White’s nurses. “If I can create a happy moment for one of my patients, even if it’s just for a few minutes, I feel like I did my job.”
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