‘Inner strength’ kept New Milford COVID patient alive

NEW MILFORD — Krista Strol remembers dreams from when she was in a coma of her sister visiting and telling her to wake up.

A woman she didn’t know told Strol her late mother would be upset if she didn’t wake.

“Thank goodness, I did,” said Strol on Friday afternoon as she sat on the dock outside Gerard’s Waters Edge Marina, the business she and her late husband built together.

Strol spent six weeks at Danbury Hospital battling coronavirus. She was in a coma for five of those weeks and learned later that doctors and nurses gave her a 10 percent chance of survival.

She has not regained feeling in her hands, toes, nor the tip of her tongue, despite being out of the hospital nearly 4 1⁄2 months. She has a breathing tube in her throat that may be permanent and has been back to the hospital for procedures.

But she’s grateful to be alive.

The death toll from the virus surpassed 200,000 in the United States recently, with about 4,500 Connecticut residents killed and more than 56,500 in the state testing positive.

“You have to appreciate how thankful you are to everybody who helped keep you here,” Strol said.

Strol’s 33-year-old daughter, Lauren, who has a learning disability, got the virus, too, but did not have symptoms. Knowing she had to have her affairs in order for her daughter kept her going, Strol said.

Her late mother and husband also visited her in her dreams.

“I was talking to them and saying, ‘I’m not ready to go,’ ” said Strol, who has three children and two grandchildren. “I think that’s inner strength that came out.”

Getting sick

Strol suspects she got the virus at Miami International Airport. She visited her brother in Costa Rica and had a four-hour layover on Thursday, March 12, shortly before Connecticut began shutting down business and most travel. It was before masks became common place. She recalled using hand sanitizer to clean the seat on the plane as a precaution, but she had also shopped around the airport and could have come in contact with many other people.

She went skiing in Vermont that weekend and felt fine until Monday, when she got a headache, fever and chills, and coughed all night. Strol called her doctor’s office on Tuesday about a COVID test, but she recalled the nurse saying it was likely the flu. She set up a Lyme disease test on Wednesday, but her doctor tested her for COVID instead.

Strol got the results the following Monday. She used an inhaler to help her breathe, but as the breathing worsened throughout the week Strol contact the doctor Saturday, March 28.

“He said, ‘Krista, hang up and call 911,” Strol said. “I guess he could hear in my voice how labored it was.”