Leamington native shares COVID-19 experience

By Mark Ribble

LAKESHORE — When Leamington native Jeff Moody began his nursing career some 26 years ago, he never imagined he’d have to deal with a pandemic that would eventually put his life at risk.

The graduate of Leamington District Secondary School spent the first three years of his nursing career at what was then known as Leamington District Memorial Hospital. His nursing career then took him across the border, where he eventually settled in at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

As a member of the Rapid Response Team at Henry Ford and also a 14-year member of the Lakeshore Fire Department, he’s seen a lot in his years on the job.

What he didn’t expect was that he would be subjected to such a virus as COVID-19.

“My job requires me to be hands-on with any patients who come in, including the COVID patients,” he said.

The 47-year-old was doing everything right as the pandemic escalated, wearing all Personal Protective Equipment required to keep the virus at bay.

For two-and-a-half weeks, he was helping patients with COVID and watching what he could only describe as a war zone. “Every floor was filled with CO- VID patients”, he said. “In fact, 80 per cent of the hospital was COVID patients.”

For the past month, however, he’s been a patient himself. Moody, speaking from his home in Belle River, recalled how it all started for him.

“We got our first confirmed patient on March 10,” he said. “I had my first symptoms on March 26.”

Those first symptoms included fever, body aches, nausea and cough.

Already knowing what he may have been subjected to, Moody went the following day to get tested at Windsor Regional Hospital’s CO- VID Assessment Centre. He spent that weekend assuming he was positive and distancing himself from his wife and two children.

The following Tuesday, the phone rang with a call from the Windsor Essex County Health Unit. His swab had come back negative.

“It was weird, because I somehow knew I had COVID, but my swab was negative”, he said. When he woke up the next morning, his symptoms were gone. “I was outside washing the car, feeling fine,” he said.

But in his gut, he knew that he’d already seen many patients at Henry Ford who said they’d had a couple days of feeling better prior to things ramping up. In his mind, Moody braced for the worst while hoping for the best.

“I didn’t want to feel that good, because I knew it was typical of COVID,” he said.

As he expected, his condition returned and deteriorated rapidly.

One week after he started with the original symptoms,he was having difficulty breathing and asked his wife Jan to take him to the ER.

At Windsor Regional, they assessed him again and sent him home, telling him he was on a ‘short leash’. He managed to get through most of the weekend, keeping busy trying to discretely get his affairs in order by recording all of his benefit information and passwords for his family to have in the event he could not verbalize them.

Late on the Sunday night, he texted his wife, who was staying in the basement with the kids, to call him an ambulance.

His oxygen levels were low, and being in the medical field, he knew what that meant.

“After that, I don’t remember much”, he said. “I was basically out of it for five or six days.”

Although he never reached the point to be put on a ventilator, he was being administered the highest level of oxygen they could give.

Meanwhile his family stood vigil from afar, hoping that their strong firefighter hero would make it through this ordeal.

Finally on April 16, Jeff was well enough to be discharged from hospital after 11 days.

He still remains quarantined away from Jan and their children, Jenna and Justin, and is still struggling to regain his strength. “I’ve still got a cough and some shortness of breath,” he said.

His oxygen levels are around 91 per cent, but should be up around 98 per cent, so he’s still got a tough road ahead. He lost 20 pounds during the ordeal and is looking forward to returning to both his jobs as soon as he is able.

Jeff Moody is greeted by co-worker Connie Lepore, who wore full PPE to welcome him home.

The Lakeshore Fire Department did a drive-by to welcome him home and he was also greeted by some of his co-workers from Henry Ford, who showed up to see him in his driveway.

If he can take anything from this, Moody is grateful to live in Canada and offers sage advice to those people from his hometown.

“Follow the rules. We are doing a great job over here. Keep it up, be careful and keep your distance”, he said.