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In the year since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, we learned that the virus can affect people differently. While some people may experience only mild symptoms (or no symptoms), the virus has caused more than 2.8 million deaths worldwide.
In an interview with TODAY, Colby Vondenstein shared his experience with COVID-19 – which resulted in two organ transplants.
According to Vondenstein’s wife, Tori, their nightmare began days after the couple and their three children celebrated Christmas with close family members in Texas. The 24-year-old tested positive for COVID-19 and began to experience traditional symptoms; fever, body aches and cough. But her fever resolved fairly quickly – apparently a positive indication of her recovery.
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“You read information about the symptoms, like, these are common symptoms,” Tori said. TODAY. “He wasn’t really out of breath at first.”
Initially, their strategy was to “let [the virus] take her course “and wait for things to gradually improve. However, Vondenstein’s symptoms started to worsen and Tori decided it was time to go to the emergency room.
“Two days later he was at Baytown Methodist Hospital fighting for his life,” she recalls. “They were giving him steroids to try and help the lungs, but there wasn’t much they could do because the kidneys were failing. They said they couldn’t do it.”
On January 11, he was transferred to the Methodist Hospital in Houston, where things took a particularly aggressive turn for the worse.
“I wasn’t really scared until I woke up, and they had all these tubes in me, and I didn’t know what was going on,” Vondenstein said.
Houston Methodist pulmonologist Dr Howard Huang said TODAY that when Vondenstein arrived at the hospital he already had kidney failure and was in “severe respiratory distress”. Huang even described his condition as a “head scraper” and put Vondenstein on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), often referred to as extracorporeal life support.
“He became completely dependent on ECMO and required very heavy sedation first,” Huang said. TODAY. “The problem then has become that you have a person who is now stuck on the ECMO machine with no real viable solution to resolve.”
Vondenstein remained in the hospital for two months, when Huang believed that neither his lungs nor his kidneys were going to improve, regardless of the measures taken. His healthcare team reduced their losses and put him on the waiting list to have both organs replaced.
“This is obviously a very serious illness in a desperate situation,” Huang explained. “We generally like to do the transplant as a controlled process rather than under emergency conditions. He really didn’t have much more time on these devices. We felt he had a reasonable chance of being able to get through it. This. The transplant is being done for COVID-19 in only a handful of cases. Worldwide, there are probably less than 100 cases that have been treated to date. “
As Vondenstein and her family eagerly awaited the games, Tori recalled that nurses were doing “whatever they could” to keep her husband alive.
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“On February 27, I arrived that morning, and the doctor stopped me in the hallway and just said it was getting harder and harder and we were running out of time, like days. To watch him go through that and watch him literally fight for a living, I can’t even describe it, ”she said. “It’s the worst pain I think I’ve ever felt. I can just describe it as watching someone being tortured.
Fortunately, suitable matches were found for a lung and kidney transplant, and Vondenstein underwent both surgeries on February 28. After two months of unconsciousness and unconsciousness and four weeks after the operation, he finally had was able to get up from his hospital bed and take a few steps.
“It feels good to be able to go out and take a few steps again,” he said. TODAY. “Honestly, I don’t think (the doctors) thought I was going to recover that quickly. They all looked shocked when they saw me do this.”
Huang said Vondenstein is on a fast track to recovery and predicts he will spend another two weeks in hospital before being considered “out of the woods.”
Vondenstein and his wife have chosen to share their story in an effort to raise awareness of the potential severity of COVID-19 and to raise funds that will be used to pay their medical bills. Tori urges young people to “just be more careful.”
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“We don’t go out to eat, we don’t do all of this. But even if you do get sick, be more careful with your signs and symptoms, know when to get help or see a doctor. You don’t realize it until it happens to someone you love how deadly the virus can be, ”she continued.
“I don’t wish this on anyone,” Vondenstein said. “It’s really hard to go through what I’m going through.”
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the couple cover their medical costs. The couple have raised over $ 15,000 and there is almost $ 50,000 left until they reach their goal.
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