VACAVILLE, Calif. — In the U.S. alone, nearly one million people went into the hospital with COVID-19 and did not get to come home.
Juanita Ramirez's Vacaville family faced that fear as she was admitted to the hospital on Dec. 16, 2020. Her daughter Antonette Ramirez-Rhode took the scary call in the middle of the night.
"It was just, you know, basically like TV. We have your mom here. She's very ill. We believe it's COVID. We're waiting for test results. She couldn't breathe. We intubated her. We need you to come down here, but honestly when you get here, she's not going to be here," Ramirez-Rhode said.
She said the doctor mentioned multiple times her mother would die before she could get to the hospital.
"They said one of us could see her at our own risk. My brother looked at me. He said, 'you go.' So, they double masked, double suited double gloved and they took me in a small room. She was quarantined. She wasn't dying, she was fighting," Ramirez-Rhode said.
Over the next few weeks, Ramirez-Rhode would have to make a lot of hard decisions regarding her mother's care. She couldn't see her due to COVID protocols, while doctors continued to warn her that her mother's death was near.
"I finally had enough, you know. I tried to stay positive every day and finally I just told the doctor, 'could you just do me one favor?' He said 'what's that?' and I said 'could you please, please, please, just continue to do what you're trying to do and God's going to do the rest.' He was quiet and they never said it again," Ramirez-Rhode said.
Her family focused on the power of prayer. They gathered in the lobby of the hospital every Sunday. When COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, Ramirez-Rhode started to sit with her mother. When she was able to be by her side, she started to notice slow progress.
At one point, doctors told her they would be forced to move her mother to Southern California for care. Ramirez-Rhode refused, so medical professionals said she would have to be trained to take over care.
She assemble a team consisting of her close friend and son, and they took turns caring for Ramirez. That's when she was able to start sitting up and making more progress toward her recovery.
"She did remarkable things while we spent those nights with her in the hospital," Ramirez-Rhode said. "She just remarkably recovered in that short period of time."
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Thanks to countless hours from medical staff and the team of three, Ramirez was cleared to go home after five months on a ventilator.
"They told us that she would need to be changed at bedside, bathed at bedside, everything is going to need to be done. That she couldn't do anything herself. We never once had to do that. She's used the bathroom herself from day one," Ramirez-Rhode said. "We did have to feed her for a while through her peg tube. That got removed first, everything has just progressed."
On Dec, 14, 2021, just two day shy of the one-year mark of being admitted into the hospital, every tube left in Ramirez's body was gone. She remembers nothing of her hospital stay, but she's well aware of her second chance at life.
"God gave me a chance to live and I'm gonna take it, and take it really seriously," Ramirez said.
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