LIFE AFTER COVID
‘I should be dead’: Norwalk man warns of COVID’s effects
NORWALK — After slipping into a coma for 47 days, getting put on a ventilator, and dying and being resuscitated three times, Allen Fedor considers himself lucky to be alive.
The 63-year-old Norwalk businessman contracted COVID-19 in May, noting he took precautions against the disease to appease his family and wife of 20 years, a nurse, but said he didn’t place too much stock in social distancing and masks. Now he wants to show people how serious the disease can be.
“I thought it was all a bunch of baloney,” said Fedor, president of Fedor Autobody Works, on Thursday. “I had no history of being sick. I haven’t been sick in like 15 years.”
Then on May 16, the symptoms started.
“It was dinnertime, around 6 p.m.,” his wife, Andrea Fedor, said while reflecting on the day. “He said, ‘Can we figure out what we’re getting for dinner? I have a headache.’ Maybe half an hour later he started coughing, and two hours later had a 101-degree fever.”
By the next week, he entered respiratory failure, was put in a medically induced coma and placed on a ventilator to boost his
oxygen levels. Doctors had to resuscitate him three times during his stay at Norwalk Hospital.
Through a series of ups and downs and periodic setbacks in his respiration, Allen awoke from his coma on July 10 and was released from the hospital four days later.
After arriving home, Andrea had to work Allen’s feeding tube, oxygen meters and pump his lungs of built-up fluid. He still had pressure wounds on his head and chin from the coma and a tracheostomy to aid in his breathing.
“I asked her to do things for me I wouldn’t do for myself,” said Allen, who credits his wife with being alive today.
As a nurse, Andrea understood the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus and the importance of mask-wearing early in the pandemic. The family isn’t sure where Allen contracted the virus, but in the week preceding his illness, he became less steadfast in his observance of the family’s coronavirus precautions, Andrea said.
“He let his guard down,” she said.
When Andrea first saw her husband in the hospital, he had just awoken from the coma and was delusional.
“He was in four-point restraints and I was like, ‘Is this going to go away? We’re breathing on our own, but this isn’t my husband,’” she said. “He was having delusions.”
Family spread
Around when Allen was intubated, the rest of the family began receiving news of their own positive test results.
The Fedors have seven children, four of whom live at home along with their 1-year-old grandson. The large family kept Allen isolated for a week after he tested positive but each of them ended up contracting the disease — from the oldest
living in the house, Brenna, 24, to the youngest of their children, Kate, 13. Brenna’s son, Anthony, who was 6 months old at the time, also contracted the virus.
“It was something you could never prepare for,” Andrea said. “I don’t ever want to do that again. A day at a time was all we could do.”
Miraculously, the rest of the family came away from their illness virtually unscathed, she said. Of the rest of the household, only Brenna developed a fever.
Life after COVID
Despite being home for the hospital for several months, Allen is still dealing with the consequences of COVID-19.
After Allen returned home, his aid from Visiting Nurse and Hospice in Fairfield County, Gina Jontos, would come three times weekly to help in his care.
The tracheostomy, es
sentially a hole is his neck with a tube to improve his breathability, was removed about a month after his release from the hospital, and the feeding tube was removed about a week after that, Jontos said. The biggest milestone in Allen’s recovery was the removal of the tracheostomy, she said.
“He was terrified of it,” Jontos said. “He was afraid it was going to plug up and was going to stop him breathing and he wasn’t going to wake up. He was afraid to sleep at night.”
In late October, Allen underwent a final surgery to fix damage to his airway caused by the tracheostomy. As the hole where the tracheostomy had healed, the scar tissue caused the windpipe to constrict, making it difficult for him to breathe, Allen’s surgeon Dr. Michael Ebright from Stamford Health said. Allen required a resec
tion surgery to remove the scar tissue constricting his airway.
The tracheostomy healing issue Allen experienced is becoming increasingly common in patients undergoing tracheostomies due to the coronavirus, Ebright said.
“Patients should know ... if they’re having persistent shortness of breath, it may be a problem with the airway,” Ebright said.
Allen said his medical bills have amassed to nearly $ 1.5 million, but he won’t have to pay any of it. At the Connecticut Insurance Department’s urging, all health insurance providers in the state have waived out-ofpocket expenses for coronavirus treatment, according to a statement from the department in May.
Allen said he wanted to share his experience both to thank the frontline workers that saved his life and to show oth
ers how serious the virus can be.
“I should be dead, and hands off to Norwalk Hospital because they saved me,” Allen said. “This is no joke, wear your mask. I know people don’t believe in it (masks) but this is the only thing we got right now until the vaccine hits.”
Going on eight months since Allen was diagnosed with coronavirus, he still isn’t fully healed. He gets easily tired, often going to sleep by 9 p.m., his memory suffered and his vision is sometimes blurry. But he’s alive.
“I’m learning to work with it because they don’t know how to fix all this,” Allen said. “But, they’re learning and it’s better all the time.”
When the vaccine arrives in Connecticut, Allen said he’ll be the first in line.