I received my liver transplant in July 22 of 2020 and I was intubated after the liver transplant.
I woke up from intubation, it was a very hellish experience. It was only about a day after I woke up from being intubated that I found out that the liver had rejected my body and I had a liver rejection.
I was put back on the ventilator after 4days I woke up from the ventilator when the doctor said that the Liver that I was given had Covid in it.
I was in extreme pain from the transplant and Now I had a 106 fever. I was put on this ice freezer bed in ICU it was an isolated room a glass room. If you were to come into my room you had to be fully suited with the mask, goggles head to toe with a hood.
I felt like it was a scene from ET in the movie. I had a 106.8 fever so now I was battling liver rejection and now Covid in my body and coming over the huge transplant surgery.
The doctors started with Covid treatment. I was given high doses of remdisiver, convalescent blood plasma treatments, and high doses of steroids.
My wrists were tied to the bed for about 2 weeks. I could not eat or drink anything they were feeding me ice and ice chips every hour or so. The doctors did not want me to rip the tubes coming out of me. So they kept my wrist tied to my bed.
I thought this is it, it’s my time to go. I thought the only way I was getting out of this hospital is in a body bag.
There was so much death and trauma going on around me in the hospital with other patients dying everywhere. I was fighting like hell and I said to myself I’m not next.
This is the middle of the peak Covid in New York City.
Patients were dying all around me from being stricken with Covid and being on a ventilator I saw or heard or felt almost 3 dozen people dying around me throughout my stay in the hospital it was like it was the scariest time I think that anyone could be in a hospital ever.
A few days after the Covid treatment that New York Presbyterian Columbia hospital was administering to me my Covid was not going away. My fever was still 105.2. I had huge bags of ice under each armpit, behind my head, and under my legs. I was still on the ice bed suffering from the transplant and battling Covid. This was a true nightmare in every sense of the word
I was on such high oxygen intake they had the oxygen up my nose and a huge mask on my face. The day that they took the mask off my face all of a sudden I got a feeling I cannot explain.. my chest caved in and I could not breathe at all whatsoever. I felt my lungs fall like is if it was an accordion. I could not breathe no one was in the room but nurses and doctors were all viewing me from the outside. I was still tied to the bed-bound by my wrists.
The nurse and the doctor saw that I was in huge distress and I couldn’t breathe they came in and they said they needed to put me on a ventilator again! my lungs collapsed and now I had respiratory failure.
My wife was on her way up to the hospital that day I don’t remember calling her because I could not breathe or talk but I hit send and handed it to my doctor and the doctor said he was going through respiratory failure and to hurry up and get up here quickly if you want to see him we’re gonna have to put him on the ventilator now.
My beautiful wife was in the lobby downstairs coming up to see me so security guards ran down there and got her and brought her up and escorted her and she looked at me and I just remember looking at her knowing that this is probably the last time I’m going to see her. I didn’t expect to survive the ventilator again.
Doctors and nurses wheeled me into this other room to get put on the ventilator. I thought that this is it! that my life was over ! this is my faith this is what God had chosen for me.
I was on a ventilator for eight days. My wife came up every day. She told me that she would play my favorite Frank Sinatra songs through her iPhone and place it on my chest. She said that I was squeezing her hand occasionally.
As I was on the ventilator and in a coma in my mind/subconscious I was traveling. I was traveling on planes, boats, ferry.
There was a point I saw this massive white light. I was walking towards it. It was so incredibly warm. It was a very calming feeling and it was a huge light. I heard my uncle who happened to be my godfather had passed away a few months earlier. I heard him with his accent calling me saying Joe Joe, Joe Joe.
I didn’t continue to walk to the light I stopped. I remember opening my eyes and realizing that I could not breathe. Nurses and doctors saw me awake. I had tubes down my throat choking I was choking so much I had so much fluid in my stomach and my body that when they saw me wake up they immediately ran into the room with the doctors and nurses to pull out the tube from my throat going down my body and they started vacuuming me.
With the vacuum, they took the tube out for the ventilator and inserted another huge tube to start vacuuming up all the fluids in my stomach and my insides. I cannot explain the pain! this was excruciating pain that I was going through during this liver transplant the pain from the liver transplant and the pain from hoses going up and down my throat, chest, and stomach.
I fought like hell. All the odds were against me. I was put on a ventilator 2x and I woke up 2x.
Mind you this is during a transplant I’m fighting & then a deathly bout of Covid.
Part 2 next