Missouri City councilman defies COVID-19’s odds
Leaning on faith and doctors, he survives rough bout with coronavirus that included pneumonia, blood clot
Oxtails were the first sign to Jeffrey Boney that something was wrong. He dived into one of his favorite dishes from the Reggae Hut Cafe in Houston’s Third Ward, thrilled the restaurant gave him more oxtails than normal: six, instead of four.
But when Boney got back to his office with his order, he could only manage a few bites of the rice, peas and vegetables and just one oxtail before losing
“I had to really lean on my faith because although the doctors and nurses were there, I was practically alone.”
Missouri City Councilman Jeffrey Boney
his appetite entirely.
Then days later, a more serious sign came: he started coughing up blood.
Boney, who originally thought he might just have a stomach bug, instead learned he had tested positive for COVID-19.
The outgoing businessman and Missouri City councilman is among a growing number of African Americans to be stricken with the new coronavirus. Public health officials have said a disproportionate number of blacks are dying from the disease in Houston and nationwide.
Boney, a city council member since 2017, said he was profoundly affected by the experience, relying on not just his doctors and family but a higher power.
“I had to really lean on my faith because although the doctors and nurses were there, I was practically alone,” Boney, 45, said during an interview last week from his home over Zoom.
Nationwide, the African American community is being ravaged by COVID-19.
In Louisiana, blacks make up 70 percent of deaths tied to the disease. The new coronavirus has already claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 African Americans in New York City, where they are twice as likely as
whites to die of it.
An Associated Press analysis of available state and local data found that one-third of those who have died from the disease are black, though they account for about 14 percent of the population in those areas. About half of states are not providing a demographic breakdown of fatalities, the AP reported.
Officials and experts have offered a range of explanations for the disparity, from pre-existing conditions that are more prevalent in the black community — diabetes, asthma and obesity — to a lack of health insurance and African Americans holding more front-line jobs that bring them into contact with the public.
In Fort Bend County, where Boney lives, county figures show 34 percent of positive cases are African Americans compared with 19 percent for whites.
“In general, African Americans are usually the population that is more severely affected by a lot of diseases, so we wouldn’t expect it to be any different,” Dr. Jacquelyn Minter, director of Fort Bend County Health & Human Services, said last week before the race and ethnicity data was publicly available.
Symptoms worsen
Boney, who was on medication for high blood pressure before his hospitalization, said he isn’t surprised by the disproportionate impact on the black community.
“There’s always been this saying that when America catches a cold, black people catch pneumonia,” Boney said. “I think that’s so true with almost any and every thing that we deal with, including now this COVID situation.”
Boney can vividly recall the day he started feeling symptoms — March 17.
An associate editor at the Houston Forward Times, a blackowned and independently operated newspaper, Boney said he worked straight through that day without stopping to eat breakfast or lunch.
Around 5:30 p.m., he headed to the Reggae Hut Cafe to pick up a carryout order. He’d felt a little off that day, thinking maybe he had come down with a stomach bug. But he knew things were not right when he totally lost his appetite.
He decided to self-isolate from his family, sleeping in a master bedroom alone and away from his wife of 23 years, Sharwin, and their three college-aged kids.
As the days passed, his symptoms worsened. He had frequent diarrhea and still didn’t want to eat.
He called his primary care doctor, who suspected a stomach virus or food poisoning. He was advised to continue to self-quarantine and take over-the-counter medication.
When his condition still didn’t improve, Boney phoned his friend, state Rep. Ron Reynolds, and asked for advice. Boney didn’t have the typical symptoms of the coronavirus such as a fever or shortness of breath, but he wondered if he should get tested nevertheless.
“What do you think I should do?” Boney asked Reynolds.
Reynolds mentioned that Boney was not feeling well to U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and she put him in touch with Dr. Joseph Varon, chief medical officer for United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, so Boney could get tested March 25.
He anxiously awaited the results for two days. When he started coughing up blood that Friday, he called Varon.
He learned then he had tested positive. Just knowing what was going on was a relief to Boney.
“I knew something was wrong with my body,” Boney said. “I knew something was abnormal.”
Leaning on faith
At United Memorial, Boney also learned that he had pneumonia in both lungs. The virus was attacking his liver, kidneys and lungs. His heart rate and blood pressure were high.
During his days in intensive care, Boney felt isolated. He never was placed on a ventilator but didn’t get much sleep, either.
He remembers hearing people struggle to breathe and the sound of machines going off. Patients would come into the special COVID-19 wing and be gone the next day.
He wondered what had happened to them.
Being alone and away from family, Boney says he had to depend on something greater than himself: his faith in God.
A self-described “1000 percent extrovert, he also used FaceTime and phone calls to check in with family.
The doctors and nurses lifted his spirits, too. They looked like aliens in their PPE gear, he said, but they pinned pictures to their clothing so Boney could know who they were. They made him laugh.
Just as Boney was starting to feel better, another CT scan revealed a blood clot in his right lung. These have proved common in many COVID-19 patients and can be fatal.
Boney was given blood thinners to break up the clot. The doctor also used intravenous Vitamin C and cortisone to help treat his illness.
Varon, a pulmonologist, said Boney’s positive attitude stood out.
“One of the problems that you have when you’re in the COVID unit, you’re isolated,” Varon said. “You’re in the middle of a room that has really no contact with the outside world. So, patients get very depressed, patients get very sad. We elected to make him happy.’”
More testing needed
When Boney returned home from the hospital April 5, his family was waiting for him with balloons and music.
Boney did a little dance as he walked through the door of his Missouri City home.
Now he’s catching up on TV series like “How to Get Away with Murder” and “The Blacklist.”
He likes to go outside and watch the wind blow through the trees. He’s taken two negative tests for the coronavirus. Members of his family haven’t shown any symptoms so far, but they plan to get tested.
Boney hopes his story puts a human face on the deadly virus and helps people understand that anyone can get infected. He is pushing to expand testing to people who aren’t showing symptoms, which several Houstonarea counties have begun doing.
“If I wouldn’t have gotten tested, if I wouldn’t have seen the doctor, if I wouldn’t have been coughing up blood and went to the ER … I probably would’ve ended up dying at home with this virus,” Boney said.
He acknowledged getting a little emotional as he reflected on the experience, adding, “I’m just thinking about how things could’ve turned out so differently for me.”