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Bill Phillips is a changed man.
Colorado’s fitness expert – who worked as expert in nutrition and performance supplementation for the Denver Broncos in the late 1990s and is the author of “Body-for-LIFE” – almost died after a two-month battle with COVID-19 because he didn’t think he needed a vaccine.
Until about two weeks ago, the 56-year-old was in a induced coma and was hooked up to a ventilator. He spent 47 days intubated and lost 70 pounds, according to the Denver Post reported.
He said his previous ability to “hit a 300-pound bench or run a mile straight up a hill”Did not reduce his symptoms and he is still on oxygen. But physicality isn’t the only transformation Phillips underwent as a result of his intimidating near-death experience. He also has a new state of mind.
He now thinks everyone should get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone,” Phillips told the Denver newspaper. “It’s not a political issue. It is a public health problem. “
“I made a mistake. This mistake almost cost me my life,” he told local news channel KUSA.
Phillips told KUSA he caught the virus twice. The first time was in January 2020, and a test revealed he had antibodies. Because of this, Phillips assumed he was immune and did not need to be vaccinated.
Then, in June 2021, Phillips started to feel sick. He told KUSA that he and his wife, Maria Phillips, initially ignored him as a sinus infection. Then he developed such a bad cough that he went to the emergency room.
“If we had waited another hour longer. Bill maybe just took a nap and didn’t wake up, ”Maria Phillips told KUSA. He was then intubated anddid not wake up for 18 days. The couple left the hospital on Wednesday after a two-month stay.
And although Bill Phillips told local media that he has suffered “a lot” in recent months, so has his wife.
“If Bill knew everything, the trauma, the pain, that I was going to have to go through every day for the past two months, I think he would have gotten the shot if he had known how much pain it was going to cause. . she said.
Bill Phillips accepted the reflection.
“Get the hang of it. Get the vaccine. Go on with your life. Don’t take chances, ”he told KUSA. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends vaccines for those who have had COVID-19, citing evidence that injections offer better protection than a past infection.
Maria Phillips added to the outlet that those “who are vaccinated are not going to end up” in her husband’s situation.
Bill Phillips plans to get the shot on his birthday in September. Maria Phillips was vaccinated while in hospital – like her husband, she had also had COVID in the past and believed that left her immune.
“We didn’t know it was possible,” she told The Denver Post. “Bill will probably never be the same again, but we’re so thankful he’s alive.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
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