BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

“One day you will give away your last breath. You may not know when, how and where that will be. The on­ly one who knows is nei­ther me nor you, but God the giv­er of life.”

—Gift GuGu Mona (South African born po­et, philoso­pher, song­writer and phil­an­thropist).

You were meant to breathe; it is the nat­ur­al bi­o­log­i­cal process that sus­tains your very be­ing. But what hap­pens when this very or­gan­ic ac­tion seems to be es­cap­ing you? “It’s a fight for that last breath that nev­er comes,” as COVID-19 sur­vivor Vanes­sa Bor­rell put it.

The 49-year-old moth­er of three from Diego Mar­tin who has been re­sid­ing in the US for the past decade ex­pe­ri­enced the most fright­en­ing or­deal a month ago when she was di­ag­nosed with the coro­n­avirus, which left her hos­pi­talised for five shad­owy days.

Of­ten she be­lieved she would not make it, look­ing for God but not be­ing able to find Him, she tells Guardian Me­dia. “I felt like there was a brass heav­en over me,” Bor­rell il­lus­trat­ed.

The tun­nelling event has caused the Pub­lic Health Ed­u­ca­tor and Physi­cian Li­ai­son Out­reach and Train­ing Spe­cial­ist to hold on to every breath in a dif­fer­ent way—with grat­i­tude; ac­knowl­edg­ing it was the breath of God in her lungs that pre­served her life, she shares.

The New York De­part­ment of Health and Men­tal Hy­giene em­ploy­ee, spoke with Guardian Me­dia from her New York home, open­ing up can­did­ly in our Q&A about her ex­pe­ri­ence with COVID-19.

DIXON: When were you di­ag­nosed with COVID-19? De­scribe the pe­ri­od lead­ing up to your di­ag­no­sis?

BOR­RELL: I was di­ag­nosed on March 17, 2020, fol­low­ing symp­toms that re­sem­bled COVID-19. Peo­ple were un­sure ex­act­ly what in­fec­tion with the coro­n­avirus looked like. At the time there was very lim­it­ed ac­cess for test­ing. There was a dis­con­nect be­tween con­sis­tent in­for­ma­tion among na­tion­al re­sources like 311, ERs and doc­tors of­fices. Af­ter much back and forth seek­ing ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion about test­ing avail­abil­i­ty, I even­tu­al­ly heard from a col­league about an ur­gent care fa­cil­i­ty that was per­form­ing COVID-19 tests.

I got the test con­duct­ed but was un­aware that I had to wait five days for the re­sults. So I was or­dered by my doc­tor to go home and self-quar­an­tine and start Z pack (azithromycin) an­tibi­otics for four days while in iso­la­tion.

DIXON: Can you re­mem­ber what you felt and the thoughts that may have bom­bard­ed your mind when you were in­formed your test was pos­i­tive?

BOR­RELL: By the time I got my COVID-19 re­sults I was al­ready in hos­pi­tal. I was very con­cerned about get­ting quick treat­ment and stay­ing alive be­cause of the high lev­els of mor­tal­i­ty, the in­fec­tion with this dis­ease was caus­ing. I was in dis­be­lief for the first few min­utes but had to quick­ly come to re­al­i­ty.

DIXON: Can you re­call what was your most fright­en­ing mo­ment spent in those five days at the hos­pi­tal? And which hos­pi­tal was this?

BOR­RELL: I had sev­er­al fright­en­ing mo­ments. While in the ER, con­stant­ly see­ing in­di­vid­u­als get­ting in­tu­bat­ed, and al­so dy­ing was trau­ma­tis­ing. To be un­able to breathe de­spite an oxy­gen mask worn con­sis­tent­ly for 24 hours on my face was dis­tress­ing. In one in­stance, I was gasp­ing for breath while be­ing ti­died by a nurse. I was gasp­ing for breath so much that slap­ping in my back to al­low me to re­cov­er quick­ly and catch a breath. With the fourth slap, I be­gan cough­ing and vom­it­ing, which she said was what was need­ed for me to catch a breath. I feared every night, falling asleep and not get­ting up. Of­ten, I would jump out of a sleep gasp­ing as if my breath was in­ter­mit­tent­ly cut off.

DIXON: You de­vel­oped bi-lat­er­al pneu­mo­nia as well as an em­bolism. What does this mean for some­one fight­ing for their life with COVID-19? Were you in­formed by doc­tors, at this stage what could be the worse?

BOR­RELL: Pneu­mo­nia com­ple­ments a coro­n­avirus in­fec­tion, this caus­es in­flam­ma­tion, af­fect­ing the tiny air sacs in the lungs which caus­es flu­id to de­vel­op in the lungs. Patch­es are seen on the lungs up­on a CT scan of the chest. Some pa­tients get such an in­fec­tion in one lung while oth­ers like my­self, in both. When this hap­pens it is very dif­fi­cult to breathe. Breath­ing be­comes very shal­low and rapid. As your body strug­gles to ex­change oxy­gen and car­bon diox­ide. This re­sults al­so in rapid heart beat­ing. The pul­monary em­bolism or blood clot is formed when the virus gets in the body. Such a con­di­tion can lead to death. I was nev­er in­formed of this con­di­tion on­ly that I need­ed to get dai­ly blood thin­ner in­jec­tions in my stom­ach which were very painful.

DIXON: Peo­ple who have sur­vived se­vere cas­es of COVID-19 have de­scribed the or­deal in var­i­ous ways but with one com­mon de­scrip­tion—not be­ing able to breathe. Your de­scrip­tion in your tes­ti­mo­ny of what it felt like com­par­ing it to “be­ing locked in the trunk of a car with a plas­tic bag over your face with just a pin­hole for oxy­gen” is unimag­in­able for any­one who breathes nor­mal­ly. Can you speak of this ex­pe­ri­ence?

BOR­RELL: Yes, it was a very dark scary place to be. Hav­ing to fight every minute of the day for breath and hav­ing to re­ly on an oxy­gen mask to breathe dur­ing rou­tine minute to minute ac­tiv­i­ties like drink­ing some wa­ter, just chang­ing your po­si­tion on a bed, us­ing a bed­pan or just go­ing to the bath­room. I was un­able to walk due to se­vere fa­tigue and breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties like se­vere short­ness of breath. It was ter­ri­fy­ing and lone­ly. I still am ex­pe­ri­enc­ing flash­backs and find it trau­ma­tis­ing to hear of per­sons ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the same thing it did.

DIXON: Do you know how you con­tract­ed it?

BOR­RELL: I be­lieve I con­tract­ed the COVID-19 virus af­ter fre­quent­ing a hos­pi­tal in Long Is­land where I would go to vis­it a good friend of mine who was ter­mi­nal­ly ill. At the time there was no ur­gency to wear a mask or prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing. More em­pha­sis was placed on hand-wash­ing and hand sani­tis­ing and cov­er­ing a cough.

DIXON: What en­cour­aged you to keep fight­ing? And did the thought, this might be the end, ever crossed your mind?

BOR­RELL: Many times I thought I could not make it. I was hy­per­ven­ti­lat­ing when I could not breathe. I was about to give up. I felt so tired and weak. My heart was rac­ing con­stant­ly. I did not want to be in­tu­bat­ed be­cause I was told by my sis­ter Ali­cia, that would re­duce my chances to sur­vive, so I fought even hard­er. I re­call a doc­tor vis­it­ing me two days in a row, she held my hand, looked ten­der­ly in my eyes and begged me to stay breath­ing one more day, ask­ing me to promise her to I would re­main fight­ing. I said I would try but I am not sure, I was so weak. I was pray­ing to God to keep me alive. Even though I could not pray aloud, I prayed in my heart and hoped that God would hear as oth­ers were al­so pray­ing for me to get through this or­deal.

DIXON: Pre-COVID-19 in­fect­ed and di­ag­nosed, were you tak­ing the virus and pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures se­ri­ous­ly?

BOR­RELL: I was fol­low­ing New York State pre­cau­tion­ary re­quire­ments and would wash and san­i­tize my hands of­ten, cov­er my coughs, and keep hands away from my face. And did not shake hands. I kept sur­faces clean and sani­tised. That was much as what was ex­pect­ed of the av­er­age cit­i­zen. There were no in­struc­tions at the time to cov­er the face or to keep four feet away by so­cial dis­tanc­ing. There were no re­stric­tions on hos­pi­tal vis­its or to pub­lic places when I was in­fect­ed. In oth­er words, peo­ple were mov­ing around in this ear­ly stage of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in New York, who were pre­sum­ably asymp­to­matic.

DIXON: Be­cause of its quick and al­most ef­fort­less trans­mis­sion, we know that fam­i­lies are not al­lowed at hos­pi­tal bed­sides or even able to view the body if an in­fect­ed per­son does not make it. There are no op­por­tu­ni­ties for good­bye. Can you de­scribe the em­i­nence of that lone­li­ness mixed with fear?

BOR­RELL: Very iso­lat­ing. No one to talk or to help with ba­sic needs like get­ting some wa­ter or ad­just­ing your pil­low. Nurs­es and as­sis­tants were over­whelmed, and you were lucky to get their at­ten­tion when pass­ing by. Lone­li­ness and fear caused my faith to weak­en at times. It was a dark place of un­cer­tain­ty with many thoughts of whether I would live to see an­oth­er day. I would think some­times that I did not get a chance to even make a will for my ben­e­fi­cia­ries. I would con­stant­ly have to fight to keep the faith and to re­mem­ber that God has a pur­pose for my life.

DIXON: Vanes­sa you have sur­vived this per­ni­cious virus that has killed tens of thou­sands and num­bers con­tin­ue to climb when you do an in­ter­nal sum­ma­ry of your ex­pe­ri­ence, where do your thoughts go?

BOR­RELL: My thoughts are that I made it! Thanks be to the pow­er of Je­sus Christ on­ly. I am very sad­dened when I hear about in­di­vid­u­als suc­cumb­ing to this COVID-19 virus. My in­stant thought is that could have been me be­cause it was ‘touch and go’ for me many times. I con­tin­u­al­ly pray for vic­tims, fam­i­lies and health work­ers.

DIXON: Are you scared, that per­haps it can hap­pen again? Glob­al­ly, we have seen some have be­come re-in­fect­ed.

BOR­RELL: I think about it every­day…about a re-in­fec­tion. There is so much in­con­clu­sive med­ical in­for­ma­tion on the is­sue of re-in­fec­tion. My fam­i­ly has al­most be­come ger­mo­pho­bic. My hus­band and son who were al­so in­fect­ed with COVID-19 are very con­cerned to go out­side. So stay­ing in­side is not a strug­gle for us af­ter our ex­pe­ri­ences.

DIXON: What are you go­ing to do dif­fer­ent­ly in your life now know­ing, what it was like to fight for one more breath to live one more day?

BOR­RELL: I live my life with more pur­pose. I ap­pre­ci­ate that man does not give life. I know it is the breath of God in my lungs that keeps me alive. I will keep prais­ing and liv­ing to serve God. I now take life a lit­tle less se­ri­ous­ly and try to live a more stress-free life.

DIXON: What mes­sage do you have for the world in this day of COVID-19?

BOR­RELL: This is an un­prece­dent­ed time in our era. There is much un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the long and short-term ef­fects of COVID-19 on mankind. What we know is that this virus does not dis­crim­i­nate and there is no cure. What we are re­quired to do is to work to­geth­er to fight this ‘mon­ster.’ We need to con­sid­er what we have learned from this pan­dem­ic. If I may, one such thing is learn­ing how to give up what we have no con­trol over. We need to un­der­stand this coro­n­avirus is big­ger than we are, but it is not big­ger than or su­pe­ri­or to God and Je­sus. We need to be­come more sen­si­tive about how this pan­dem­ic can af­fect oth­ers and take time to think about how to act.

Even though all the re­quire­ments to stay safe and stop the spread of the virus are new to us, we need to be­come more un­der­stand­ing and ac­cept­ing of these so­ci­etal ad­just­ments. We need to eval­u­ate in­for­ma­tion be­fore spread­ing false in­for­ma­tion and we need to grow through this pan­dem­ic. Fo­cus on the pos­i­tive, count your bless­ings and spread hope. Live in the present—one-day-at-a-time, but al­so fo­cus on the fu­ture. More im­por­tant­ly, we need to thank and ap­pre­ci­ate oth­ers who have sac­ri­ficed to keep us safe and pro­tect­ed like the doc­tors, nurs­es, and all oth­er med­ical pro­fes­sion­als risk­ing their lives and the lives of their fam­i­lies dai­ly to take care of those in need of care dur­ing this COVI­ID-19 pan­dem­ic. Let us pray for each oth­er for safe­ty and pro­tec­tion. God an­swers prayer!