Son channels grief into positivity
Man donates plasma to research after his dad dies of COVID-19
REGINA Paul Gullacher was so sick he could barely get out of bed the last time he talked to his dad.
Noble (Butch) Gullacher was on his third day as a COVID-19 patient at the Regina General Hospital when he phoned his eldest son on March 21.
“He could hardly talk; he would take 10, 20 seconds between phrases, just to kind of get all his words out,” Paul recalled last week, from his home in south Regina.
“And he was saying, ‘This is probably it; I don’t think I’m getting out of this.’ He apologized for having to explain to the kids what was happening … how much he loves them, how amazing they were, how great they were.”
Butch was induced into a coma the next day, and died on April 10.
The almost three months since have been “surreal” for the Gullacher family.
For Paul, that time has included suffering his own symptoms of COVID-19 — the entire family contracted the virus.
Paul had dizziness, extreme fatigue, difficulty breathing, vertigo. At times his vision seemed on a dimmer switch, fading into darkness.
After the worst of it, he continued to have symptoms: His breathing was abnormal for two whole months — “like a literal burning” unlike anything he’d ever felt, simply through moderate exercise.
Having recovered from COVID -19, Paul is now doing what he can to contribute to its research.
Just recently, he donated plasma at the Regina Canadian Blood Services clinic.
It took 44 minutes and was “easier than donating blood” — no wooziness afterward.
Health Canada, CBS and Canadian Plasma Resources are part of a research project to determine if convalescent plasma could be used as an effective treatment for COVID -19.
People who have recovered from the virus will have built up antibodies to protect them from possible future infection. Their antibodies could help treat other people who contract the virus. This isn’t a new idea: According to CBS, convalescent plasma was used to treat the 1918 influenza.
Paul says participating in this clinical trial is a way to channel his grief into something positive.
“It’s just a source of motivation to be as much a part of this process as I can be,” Paul said.
As a high-school science teacher, he feels a “professional obligation.”
As a COVID -19 survivor, he feels a “moral obligation.”
As a bereaved son, it’s a way of honouring his dad.
“If my dad hadn’t gotten sick until September, the ability to diagnose, treat — the information on how to work with patients like him that had reduced kidney function — that would have all been a little bit more known and the likelihood of him surviving could have been greater,” said Paul.
“But it’s not about me; it’s just about that experience. Like, there’s half a million people that have died as well, right? It’s not just him. And if it’s your dad … or moms or brothers or sisters, I imagine you would appreciate me doing everything I could do to prevent them from sharing my experience.”
Butch remains the only person in Regina to have died from COVID-19; 13 people have died of the virus across Saskatchewan.
He tested positive on March 19, despite not having travelled or knowingly been in contact with someone who had travelled.
Saskatchewan’s first presumptive case of coronavirus was reported March 12.
In those early days, the government’s message, in Paul’s words, was “‘keep calm, there’s no community transmission.’ But I don’t think it was true and I think they knew it wasn’t true.”
Before Butch showed symptoms, his family carried on business as usual: There was the weekly sleepover with the grandkids, Paul’s son and daughter, on March 13; and, their weekly family supper on March 15.
An ambulance took Butch to the hospital on March 19.
His wife of nearly 45 years, Paul’s mom Kathleen, never displayed symptoms.
Aside from a touch of pink eye and a short-lived cough, neither did Paul’s nine-year-old son, Willem.
Paul’s wife, Aimee, lost her senses of taste and smell for about 10 days.
Six-year-old daughter, Athena, also had pink eye, and a slight fever but normal energy; Paul said he “would have sent her to school under any other circumstances,” but the schools were already winding down to close.
Paul said he and his mother have been open about their story so people know “how our actions in the coming days have such powerful consequences.”
He said he sees a “very dominant perspective” that Regina and Saskatoon are “isolated somehow” because case numbers are so low — “‘oh, it’s just a Hutterite colony, we’re still fine,’ or ‘oh it’s just the (far) north, we’re still fine,’” he said, referencing the largest sources of Saskatchewan’s active cases.
In the Gullacher family, consequences of the coronavirus are present every day.
Athena’s little Lego hospital is full of COVID-19 patients.
Willem — who was very close with his grandpa — for weeks secretly harboured the belief that he got his grandpa sick.
“He began to talk about feeling guilty and thinking that maybe he was the cause of it all,” said Paul.
As society continues to reopen, Paul wants to keep the coronavirus on people’s minds, even though “I’d rather not be the poster child of COVID.”
“We can lead by example, but it just depends what example we want to lead” — whether it’s wearing a mask when you go out and staying home when you can, or ‘poor decisions’ like taking your kids to the playground without hand sanitizer and hosting huge gatherings.
The latter examples are “going to have these tragic consequences — not necessarily even on you,” said Paul.
“I think that a lot of people out there, that might be just in the early symptoms of the disease, might be in denial and still go grocery shopping and still go about their daily schedule as they might otherwise.”
He wants people to think about that, and consider “cherishing your family, the power of the decisions we make each and every day, and their consequences on ourselves and other people nearby.”