Woman with Covid-19 wakes up from weeks on ventilator the day her family planned to take her to life support
They held her funeral and picked her coffin and headstone as they prepared to say goodbye, her son Andrew Lerman told CNN.
“He was like, ‘Wow, I need you to come here right now.’ I said, ‘OK, what’s the matter?’ “Lerman said. “He said, ‘Well, nothing’s wrong. Your mother woke up.'”
Lerman said he dropped his phone when he heard the news.
Lerman said his mother, who turned 70 in February, has a number of health conditions, including diabetes, and suffered a heart attack and amputation a few years ago.
She began showing Covid-19 symptoms in early September, was diagnosed on admission on September 12, and resumed mechanical ventilation on September 21, he said.
She wasn’t vaccinated but had a plan to get vaccinated when she got sick, he said.
Her condition deteriorated and doctors told her family that she could not recover.
“We had a family meeting with the hospital because my mother didn’t wake up. No matter what they did, they couldn’t wake her up,” Lerman said. “They said her lungs were completely destroyed. There was irreversible damage – that’s not going to happen.”
It’s been about three weeks since she woke up on October 29, and a hospital spokesman told CNN she is in serious condition. The hospital cannot release any additional information because of confidentiality laws.
Lerman said his mother didn’t have any organ failure and no one really understood how well she was doing.
“My mother is very religious and a lot of her friends, the church, and everything else and they are all praying for her,” he said. “So they can’t medically explain it. Maybe it’s religious. I’m not that religious, but I’m starting to believe something helped her. I don’t know.”
Lerman said he talked to his mother for hours on Wednesday, and she was able to move her hands and arms and was able to breathe on her own for several hours with some oxygen support, instead of a ventilator. .
“She knows where she is, who she is – she’s sharp as a nail,” Lerman said. “Usually, when someone comes out of such a coma, they say the patient is delirious and they are very confused. From day one, she hasn’t experienced anything like that.”
He said she is not out of the woods yet and there may still be steps backwards, but that paramedics are considering putting her on a rehabilitation list to help her regain range of motion.
She received physical therapy to help rebuild the muscle strength she lost during the ordeal.
Lerman and his mother live in Florida, but both have traveled a lot to Maine to care for his father, who has stage 4 cancer. Lerman’s father took Covid at the same time as Lerman’s mother but recovered.
When they didn’t think she would recover, Lerman said, the family abandoned his mother’s Florida apartment, gathered important family items and donated her remains to residents. another in her building.
Lerman said his mother told him she prayed while in a coma and remembers people visiting and talking to her.
“So the words of encouragement I have are not to give up hope, and when you visit your loved one in this situation, talk to them because they can hear you,” he said.
He also said every case of Covid is different and he knows not everyone can recover like his mother.
“She is a miracle,” he said.
