Andy’s story began at the end of July 2021 in the height of the Delta. On July 24, Andy was unknowingly exposed to covid. On July 26, he started having symptoms in the form of fatigue and low-grade fevers. On July 28, he went to urgent care and tested positive for Covid. He wasn’t given any medications or advice other than to go to the Emergency Room if he couldn’t breathe.

From July 28 until August 1 his symptoms progressively accelerated and got worse throughout the week. He experienced high fevers of 102-103+ that wouldn’t break and terrible headaches. He also had back pain but it never crossed our minds that it was pneumonia. We tried to separate from each other (for the first couple of days since I wasn’t sick yet) and we just thought it was from the mattress in the guest room being so hard. Later in the week, he started having shortness of breath and dizzy spells. That’s when we knew it was time to go to the hospital.

On August 2, he was admitted to Health First Viera Hospital in Florida with a pulse oximeter reading of 82% around 5:30 AM. They diagnosed him with Covid pneumonia. He was asked if he was vaccinated and he told them he wasn’t. He said he was going to be given an antiviral but he couldn’t remember the name of it. He said the nurse told him it was “pretty much the same thing as Hydroxychloroquine.” He was given Remdesivir, Xanax, Ativan, Melatonin, Hycodan, Tocilizumab, Methylprednisolone, Lovenox, and Tylenol, all on the first day. They attempted to give him Insulin but he refused. He was not diabetic but the nurse told him it showed in his chart that he was. When looking at the itemized bill, it was charged to the insurance anyway.

The case manager called to speak to me that afternoon. She went over the treatment plan. I asked about Ivermectin. She told me the only things they had to fight covid with were Remdesivir and convalescent plasma but they were currently out of the plasma. She said neither treatment showed that they had much of an impact on Covid. She made it sound as if they weren’t very effective but never once did she mention the harmful side effects such as kidney damage or multi-system organ failure with the Remdesivir. After the call with the case manager, I called the blood bank to see if I could do a direct donation to Andy for the plasma. I was currently getting over Covid myself and since Health First told me they were out I wanted to get him some. I was told by the blood bank that they did not allow direct donations.

One thing positive about this whole experience was Andy didn’t get to the Intensive Care Unit until extremely late the night of August 2 and he was kind of hungry and kind of not because of all the medications. There was a nurse there who went out of her way to make him a bowl of soup. That was his last meal.

On August 3, I couldn’t get in contact with Andy. He wouldn’t answer my messages. I tried all day to speak with his nurse but they were always busy when I called. Finally, I got ahold of the nurse around 8:00 pm and they stated that Andy was intubated an hour before. I told them I had been calling all day, why didn’t they call me to let me speak to him before intubation and the nurse wouldn’t answer me. I asked if Andy gave consent and all they responded with was a cold “yes.” Later in his medical records, I found out he was in a state of delirium when they intubated him. How did he give consent if he was delirious? I also found out (through medical records) that they restrained Andy with soft restraints. In the records, the nurse stated, “wife notified, agreeable.” This was a lie. I was never told about him being put in restraints. I would never be “agreeable” to this.

On August 4, the hospital called me to ask for my permission to do a procedure on Andy. I was told that someone inserted his catheter incorrectly and it caused damage to his ureter and also caused his bladder to back up with urine. But I’m not sure what really happened because after looking through the medical records, it showed Andy pulled it out. So, I’m not sure what to believe. Was it the nurse who messed up and they blamed it on Andy or was it him who truly pulled it out? Or maybe it was causing him pain after they messed up and he tried to pull it out to get relief. I just don’t know. Later this issue caused him to have chronic urinary tract infections.

From August 5 until August 9, I had to constantly chase down nurses to get updates. They always sounded annoyed when I finally got ahold of them. I never got to speak with a doctor during this whole week. Also, I was told by a nurse that she has never seen a patient come off a ventilator in that hospital. It was like she was purposely trying to kill my hope.

On August 10, I received a call from the nurse practitioner working with the doctor. She called to inform me that Andy wasn’t doing well and he wasn’t going to make it. On August 11, I received a call from the hospital telling me to come in for an end-of-life visit. I met with and spoke with a doctor for the first time since Andy was admitted. I begged them to save him. I wanted them to try Ivermectin, vitamins and/or ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation). I was denied all requests. I was told his lungs were like concrete and they were surprised he was still alive.

I had my visit with Andy and I could tell he had major edema. It was clear to me then that his kidneys were shutting down. I painfully said my goodbyes. After my visit with Andy, I was asked to sign a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR). They said I would only be prolonging his death, not his life. They said it would crack his ribs and cause unnecessary suffering if they had to do CPR. I agreed to sign the DNR. They asked me to shut off the ventilator and I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

After I got home, a close friend who was a nurse, stepped in as our patient advocate and called the hospital to find out what was really going on. She told me Andy wasn’t as bad as they were making it sound. He was obviously in a bad way but nowhere close to the point of giving up. She told me to call and reverse the DNR. I called the hospital to reverse the DNR and told them we were going to continue to fight for Andy.

On August 13, he had an episode where his oxygen supposedly dropped to single digits for a couple of hours. I never received a phone call informing me of this. I only found out when I called for my nightly update. No one had any answers as to why his oxygen dropped so low for so long. On August 15, I finally got the new doctor to give him Vitamins C and D. They were very low doses so I’m not sure what impact they really had but at that point, I was refused everything else, so I stupidly took it as a win.

On August 17, he started dialysis. From August 18 until August 22, he had good days and bad days during this time but it started to be more bad days than good. His liver and gallbladder started shutting down and there was some sort of infection raging in his body.

On August 23, I received a call from our patient advocate who stated Andy wasn’t doing well and he was maxed out on vasopressors. She said he was going to code and that I needed to get to the hospital immediately. So, I went to the hospital to say my final goodbyes. They didn’t want to let me in at first but after what felt like forever, they let me up to see him. I agreed to a DNR and asked them to stop all medications except comfort medications.

On August 24, I spoke loving words to him until he passed. Once his heart officially stopped, that’s when I asked them to turn off the ventilator.

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NURSE TELLS PATIENT THAT THE ANTIVIRAL…