COVID patient gets emotional send-off from hospital staff
The pain was so bad that Richard Singer wanted to die.
The 76-year-old Fort Erie resident recently spent several weeks at St. Catharines hospital suffering serious complications from COVID-19.
“For the first four days I kept saying, ‘Let me die, I want to die.’ I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy if I had any enemies,” said Singer. “I was in such pain you can’t begin to imagine. I said to (hospital staff), ‘I’m done, I’ve suffered enough, just let me die.’ ”
He said at one point, the hospital called Beth, his wife of 56 years, to let her know her husband wasn’t doing well, and that she “better come now.”
On opposite sides of a glassed-off room, “Beth and I said our goodbyes,” said Singer, noting he spent time in the COVID-19 wing and intensive care units, and was close to being sent to the palliative care ward.
“I told her that I loved her, and she said she loved me, and that was it. I fully (expected) that was the end of it — I was going to die, and I was OK with that.”
But Singer said he believes the “unbelievable” care he received by Niagara Health staff helped in his recovery.
He said he was treated “like royalty” by all hospital staff, including from nurses, doctors, cleaners and technicians.
“The nurses, even when they would start their shift or be going home, even if I wasn’t on their shift that day or that night, they’d come in and see how I was,” he said. “It was unbelievable how they looked after me.”
After a period of recovery, Singer was told he could return home.
But he was in for a surprising send-off.
Lining the hallway as he left his medical unit in a wheelchair were members of his healthcare team, who were applauding his discharge.
“I got very emotional,” said Singer, adding he’s typically not an emotional kind of guy.
“When (the nurse) was wheeling me out, I said to her, ‘It’s a miracle I’m here, I have to thank you because my wife thought a few times that she had lost me.’ The nurse looked at me and she said, ‘Richard, we (thought) a few times we had lost you.’ Definitely, I think the care I got made a huge difference — there’s no question about that.”
Being hospitalized reinforced for Singer the toll the virus can take on people.
“Beth and I have followed all the rules — social distancing, masks, the whole bit,” he said. “There’s nobody that’s not vulnerable.
“The idiots out there that
don’t believe or think it’s a hoax, I don’t know what to say. I guess that there’s no cure for stupidity, but I would say that for people with brains, they shouldn’t feel just because I follow the rules, and just because I wear a mask, etc., etc., (that they can’t catch the virus). I was healthy and this was something that was totally unexpected.”
Singer’s wife said it was “very emotional” knowing what her husband was going through.
“I wasn’t ready for him to go,” said Beth, noting she had a fairly mild case of the virus before her husband, and it was difficult to get through the “roller-coaster” of changes in his condition, not just with the virus, but with several infections and health issues.
Since being home, Singer said he’s getting stronger every day.
“I have good days and bad. The hospital told me when I left that it would probably be four months until I started to feel (more normal). They told me that if I have a bad day, not to let it get me down because I might have two or three good days and then a bad one — it’s just the normal routine of recuperating from the virus.”