COVID Recovery
La Salvación de Una Vida, Dos Veces
“I was afraid they were going to tell me there was nothing else they could do”
For Fort Worth resident Bryan Ayala, COVID-19 struck quickly and hit hard.
At the beginning of May, he was more concerned about the fact that he’d been laid off from his job than he was about catching the virus that was sweeping the globe. In those days, it was thought that COVID was something only people over 60 or with pre-existing health conditions had to worry about and Bryan, 21, had none.
One day, without warning, he noticed he couldn’t take a deep breath.
Brothers Battle Back Against COVID-19
“There were definitely times when I wasn’t sure we would both make it out of the hospital to be together again,” said Sean Freeman.
He and his brother, Carlos, found themselves at JPS at the same time over the summer of 2020, fighting extended battles with COVID-19. Sean’s case was serious, but Carlos spent a month near death on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit. “I’ll never forget, after all Carlos went through, when they called to say he was off the ventilator and breathing on his own again. It seemed like a miracle.”
Just Give us Two More Days
She had no doubts about the skill of her caregivers. But, when Etta Hammie arrived at JPS Health Network in November suffering severe COVID-19 symptoms, she didn’t think she had the strength to go on.
“I’ve been a nurse for many years, and I told them when I got here that I didn’t want any part of a ventilator,” Hammie said. “But it was only a short time before things started to get worse and the doctor came to me to say that she was concerned I was getting too weak to survive without help.”
