Beating the odds
♦ An 83-year-old man is given a celebratory sendoff as he is discharged from Redmond after battling COVID-19.
Dressed in a jacket and trilby hat, Ted Thomas made his way along the hallways of Redmond Regional Medical Center on Friday with the help of a wheelchair.
The route ended the Cartersville resident’s six-week journey recovering from COVID-19, one of the success stories during this pandemic.
And throughout his treatment, Thomas’ recovery faced one significant hurdle — his age.
The 83-year-old was the first COVID-19 positive patient at Redmond to be intubated and placed on a ventilator and just the second COVID-19 positive patient overall at the hospital.
On Friday, with his family waiting outside, Thomas was discharged from the hospital’s inpatient rehabilitation unit and cleared to go home. As he neared the hospital’s main entrance, he received a standing ovation from doctors, nurses and staff members from both Redmond and Harbin Clinic who had lined each side of the hospital hallway.
“It was just wonderful,” Thomas said of the send-off as he sat in his son-in-law’s RV a few moments later. “It was so great to know what they have done to help me.”
Thomas came to Redmond on March 6, before the current pandemic had fully enveloped the country and Georgia had yet to see any widespread precautionary measures put in place to stop its spread.
He had no significant medical history, other than high blood pressure, and was considered relatively healthy for his age. He is very active and frequently drove to concert venues to see his grandson, July Turner, who is a musician.
Still, doctors and administrators knew he was in one of the more vulnerable demographics for the disease, with its effects able to cause severe symptoms and possibly prove fatal.
Harbin Clinic pulmonologist Dr. Jennifer Barbieri was one of the doctors who cared for Thomas and said COVID-19 was not on their radar initially, but the hospital insisted he was tested.
“He never complained, he had no symptoms really. He was just having some trouble breathing well and we decided to put him on a ventilator,” Barbieri said.
She intubated Thomas on March 10 and he was transferred to the critical care unit at Redmond where he would stay for 16 days.
“It was uncharted territory,” said Kathy Ware, the CCU nurse director. “We only allowed three staff (Barbieri, a nurse, and a respiratory therapist) in the room for the intubation in order to limit exposure to other staff.”
Eventually, the team was able to work on weaning Thomas off the ventilator. While he did well during the day, his team would have to sedate him at night to help him rest and recuperate, losing some of the ground he made during his daytime weaning trials.
“We were determined that he was going to live,” Ware said. “After about two weeks on the vent, we knew that, given his age, the longer he stayed on the ventilator, the lower his chances of regaining his prior level of function.”
He was taken off the ventilator on March 26 and was strong enough to give a thumbs-up while having a photo taken with the two CCU nurses who extubated him, Zack Gibson and Bekah Blanton.
They were then able to FaceTime Thomas’ daughter, Sandra Stanley, so she was able to see and hear her father as soon as the procedure was finished.
“The nurses were in full gown, masks, goggles and were afraid they would scare him,” Stanley said. “His nurse, Bekah, said, ‘I’m probably scaring you with all of this on.’ Dad said, ‘Yes, but I’m proud of you for taking care of me.’ Dad was grateful for them taking such good care of him.”
“We rotate staff, but Zack, Bekah and Kinslee (Clevenger) always had him,” Ware said. “They wanted to care for him every time they worked. They even came in on their days off to check on him.”
Since Redmond continues to not allow visitors, the nurses communicated with Thomas’ family regularly to update them on his condition.
“The nurses had a strong connection with his family, even though they had never met them in person,” Ware said.
“The nurses will never know how much their phone calls meant to me,” Stanley said. “Zack, Bekah, Kinslee, and so many others — they were my lifeline.”
Thomas was well enough by April 2 to be moved to Redmond’s inpatient rehabilitation unit, where he worked on regaining his strength under the guidance of Harbin Clinic physical medicine and rehabilitation physician Dr. Shereef Girgis. By
Friday, he was able to walk with a walker.
Friday was the first time many of the nurses and doctors were able to see Thomas’ family in person. Some of his relatives made signs and thanked the staff for all they had done.
“It makes it all worth it,” Barbieri said. “It’s a morale booster. For all of the stories that are not a success, these are the ones that encourage us to keep doing it.”