When emerging from the ICU is just the beginning of surviving coronavirus (Amy Yerkanin/al.com)
Posted Jul 08, 2020
By Amy Yurkanin | ayurkanin@al.com
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Page, a 59-year-old Gadsden native, worked 12-hour shifts four times a week. She led the department during overnight shifts for 16 years, taxing work that kept her moving. Although she had diabetes and high blood pressure, she managed both with medication and did not allow those conditions to slow her down.
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Page spent almost two months on a ventilator. She came so close to death, hospital staff told family members to consider making funeral plans. But Page survived the virus.
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Page hopes to return to work part-time. That may be months off.
At home, she does physical therapy and blows into a tube that exercises her lungs. Page has not had to use oxygen since she left the hospital, and her doctors are encouraged. She wakes up feeling great, Page said, but quickly hits the wall.
“Yesterday I had to get a haircut, then I had to come back and rest,” Page said. “It’s really tough not having the strength to do anything you want to do.”
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more: https://www.al.com/news/2020/07/when-emerging-from-the-icu-is-just-the-beginning-of-surviving-coronavirus.html
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