‘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.”
She does not remember whether she was put on the ventilator that day or the next. She only recalls her dreams.
“People say COVID dreams are very intense and more negative, kind of scary,” Strol said. “Mine were kind of light and partied.”
There were fast boats, cars and airplanes. Her kids and friends came in and out. A Danbury Hospital nurse constantly scolded her to get back in bed.
“I was on the Snake River for one of them and we’re snowed in and she says, ‘I told you, get back in bed’” Strol recalled. “I said, ‘How did you find me here?’”
An Indian man stayed with her “When I finally came out of my coma, I swore he was on my windowsill,” Strol said.
Family business
Meanwhile, her 35-year-old son Jeremy and 31-year-old son Garret ran the family business. Garrett Strol said he was worried about his mother. “Obviously, it was hard,” he said. Taylor Parker, who has worked for the company for three years, described Strol as a “fixture” at the marina.
“It was scary,” she said. “Not only is she my boss, she’s like family.”
Strol and her husband Gerard bought the marina out of a bankruptcy in 1994 and officially closed on it in 1997. They renovated the building and constructed a state-of-the art storage facility, Strol said.
The kids did homework on the boat while their parents worked.
“They lived in life jackets when they were little,” Strol said.
Unlike other businesses, the marina has boomed with people turning to passive recreation as an escape of the monotony of the pandemic, she said.
“There are so many businesses that didn’t make it,” Strol said. “I’m just so thankful mine exceeded.”
She and her husband met at Chuck’s Steak House in Danbury and were together for about 42 years. She didn’t like him at first though.
“After a couple of dates and everything, you really saw something inside of him that was so genuine and so real,” Strol said. “You could look into his beautiful blue eyes and see his soul.”
He died in February 2019, making her illness even tougher for the family.
“It was hard for all of us the first year, trying to fill a great man’s shoes or the loss of that,” Strol said. “They (her kids) all shut down because they thought I was going to die.”
‘Determined’ to fully recover
She left Danbury Hospital on May 9 and stayed at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital for 10 days before going home, where she could not leave for two weeks.
“I wanted to get out so bad,” Strol said. “I was doing leg lifts in bed. I was determined that I was getting out of there.”
Strol lives off Candlewood Lake in New Milford, and community members organized a boat parade for her. She received about 100 get-well cards.
A couple weeks after leaving Burke, she had breathing problems again and returned to Danbury Hospital to have the tube installed. A three-day procedure turned into a 12-day stay due to infection and blood clots, she said.
Doctors and nurses who cared for her before visited. When she returned to the hospital a couple weeks ago for heart valve replacement, two doctors asked to take her picture and described her as a “legend,” she said.
“It gave me an opportunity in person to say ‘thank you,’” said Strol, tearing up.
She may have surgery that would allow the breathing tube to be removed, but is not strong enough yet. There are risks, including losing her ability to speak or her voice changing, Strol said.
She attends therapy three times a week and wants to hire a personal trainer in the future. A neurology test found she has a 60 to 80 percent chance of being able to use her hands as normal.
“I’m determined to get more back because I’m a skier,” Strol said. “I’ve got to hold that ski pole, whether they have to tape it to my hand.”
She is still worried about the virus. “I have antibodies, but if I get it again I don't know how it will affect me, what my outcome will be,” Strol said.
Strol said she understands people’s desire to leave the house. But she encouraged the public to to wear masks and recognize the virus is real and affects healthy people, like she had been.
“I didn’t go crazy because I was in a coma all that time that they were locked up,” Strol said. “But they have to realize it’s still out there and it’s still very potentially harmful to anybody and everybody. Nobody is left out.”