77 DAYS DREAMING OF DEATH
In the netherworld that was his sedation while medical teams scrambled to save his life from the coronavirus, Khatchik Ohannessian dreamed that he was dead.
That was until he opened his eyes one day at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Cambridge and saw a brick wall bearing the name of its 1895 predecessor, Holy Ghost Hospital for Incurables.
“I realized I’m not dead,” Ohannessian said. “I’m alive.”
After 77 days during which he lost 45 pounds and suffered pneumonia, lung and kidney failure, two strokes and blood clots in his arm, the 56-year-old physical therapist returned to his Stoneham home on Wednesday, belying the old hospital’s name with his triumph over death.
As their car pulled into the driveway, his wife, Dana Ohannessian, beeped the horn, the 1976 Boston song “Long Time” began playing from inside the house, and more than two dozen relatives and friends sent up a cheer from the front lawn, where “Khatchik comes home” and “#Survivor” were spelled out in large cutout letters.
“I’m not used to being the center of attention,” he said after he got out of the car, wearing a Bruins Stanley Cup champions T-shirt and leaning on a cane.
“Wait,” his wife said with a chuckle, “you are used to being the center of attention.”
Ohannessian’s long struggle with a disease that already has claimed the lives of nearly 135,000 people in the U.S. alone this year began in April, when he started coughing and feeling fatigued and feverish. When his temperature reached 104 on April 24, he went to MelroseWakefield Hospital.
“I thought I was dropping him off for an IV because he was dehydrated,” his wife said, “but then they checked his oxygen saturation, and it was only 60%.”
Three days later, he was intubated and transferred to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he was on a ventilator for 1K months.
On June 10, he was transferred to Spaulding, where his family was allowed to see him for one-hour visits and he began to work on rebuilding his strength. Because COVID-19 is still a new disease, little remains known about its long-term consequences.
“But it would not be uncommon for people with, say, severe cases of influenza to have a slow recovery lasting months, with fatigue and difficulty concentrating. People describe flashbacks and hallucinations,” said Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of Brigham and Women’s Division of Infectious Diseases. “They’re going to have problems with weakness and PTSD.”
But while much remains unknown about COVID-19, he said, the prognosis for patients is better today than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.
Doctors have learned things that have made a difference, Rex said, like putting patients on their stomachs so that their lungs can function better, and using the antiviral drug Remdesivir and the anti-inflammatory steroid Dexamethasone.
Ohannessian said he doesn’t know what the future holds, but he was looking forward to a lobster dinner with his family.
“All I know is I had some dark moments, but I’m here,” he said. “Not everyone is so fortunate.”