‘Miracles’ after COVID: Conn. man discharged after 9 months
WALLINGFORD — George Aiello went to Danbury Hospital in March for what he thought was a heart problem.
The 77-year-old hasn’t been back to his Bethel home since, spending more than a month attached to a ventilator as he battled COVID-19 and about another seven months recovering at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare.
But on Friday morning, he was heading home.
“I might have come in by an ambulance, but I’m walking out,” he said.
Wearing an “I survived COVID-19 mask,” he took his first steps outside to the applause and cheering of at least a dozen Gaylord health care workers.
His wife, in a “Merry Christmas” mask, had tears in her eyes. She said his homecoming was the best Christmas present.
He is one of about 150 patients to be discharged from Gaylord after recovering from the coronavirus.
For the Navy veteran and X-ray tech at Norwalk Hospital, his recovery is a sign there is “life after COVID,” he said.
“As sick as you are today, you’ll be able to stand up and walk and move,” he said, rising from his wheelchair to demonstrate. “There is hope, even with COVID, there can be miracles. You just got to work hard.”
But the family is not free from the virus, yet. Not only will Aiello continue therapy through Gaylord’s outpatient recovery program, but his son, George Jr., is in a West Virginia intensive care unit with the virus.
“He’s going to make it,” said Aiello, who has three children and 11 grandchildren. “He’s strong like me. He’s going to walk out of there.”
When Aiello first went to the hospital, masks were for health care workers only and restaurants had only been shut down for a few days. As he leaves, the virus is still raging, but health care workers have begun to be
vaccinated.
“I don’t think he fully knows yet how different things are going to be,” said his wife, Kathleen Aiello, 76.
In hospitals
Before he fell ill, George Aiello worked as an X-ray tech at Norwalk Hospital’s emergency room, a job he held for 37 years. His wife suspects that is where he caught the virus.
The couple brought him to Danbury Hospital on March 21 because his smart watch showed his heart rate was accelerated.
“We weren’t really thinking COVID,” Kathleen Aiello said
She dropped him off at the hospital, and he called her less than 10 minutes later saying he was being admitted. He tested negative for the virus at first, but results of a second test came back positive.
He was brought to the intensive care unit on March 27 and was hooked up to a ventilator for 38 days.
“When he was in the hospital, it was nervewracking because you didn’t know what the next phone call was going to say,” Kathleen Aiello said.
The two could not celebrate their 56th anniversary together on April 11, so they honored their 561⁄ 2- year anniversary with pastries from Varano Bakery in Bethel, where
they have lived for 47 years.
The couple met when she was 10. Their first date was at the roller skating rink when she was 14. They started going “steady” at 16, were engaged at 18 and married at 20.
The family set up his iPhone so that it would automatically pick up if it rang, allowing them to talk to him, even when he was unable to speak or pick up. His three kids work in the medical field, which helped them know what questions to ask the staff.
“It’s because of my three kids that he’s still alive,” Kathleen Aiello said.
That familial support was a big part of Aiello’s recovery, hospital staff said.
But his determination was a major aspect, the staff said. He insisted on returning to his house, not a nursing home.
“George is the absolute definition of resilience,” nurse Alyssa Chmielecki said.
‘ Tremendous progress’
With services like physical and occupational therapy, Aiello made “tremendous progress,” said Charlene Lewis, the patient care technician who worked with him since the beginning.
“It’s the reason you come to work,” said Lew
is, adding she felt like she was saying goodbye to her “Uncle George.”
Aiello worked with staff in the gym, and then Lewis and the nurses emphasized the skills in his room.
“I had to learn how to walk and eat and write my name,” he said. “It doesn’t look how I used to write it.”
Twenty patients are recovering from COVID-19 at Gaylord, which admits those who have been discharged from an acute care setting, but not well enough to go home, said Joy Savulak, spokeswoman for the hospital.
Most patients have been 40 or older, but the youngest patient was in his or her early 30s, she said.
Aiello said he can’t wait to eat steak, baked potatoes and corn on the cob at home, while his wife is looking forward to talking to him without a mask.
The couple plans to stay at their son’s house in Oxford for six to eight weeks before returning to Bethel. Kathleen Aiello is scheduled for cataract surgery on Monday.
George Aiello will participate in an outpatient program Gaylord launched for people who had COVID, but continue to face side effects, such as extreme fatigue or brain fog.
“I’m not as strong as I used to be, but I’m going to get there,” he said.