WATCH ICU Doctor With COVID-19’s Heartbreaking Goodbye To Her Kids
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Intensive care Doctor Julie John left an emotional video message for her children when she feared she would die from coronavirus. Struggling to catch her breath, Dr.John really thought she was dying and did not want her children to see her that way. Now, she is slowly recovering from the virus and in self-quarantine. Take a look at her heartbreaking narrative detailing the day that she thought would be her last.
Doctor Julie John’s Wanted To Say Goodbye To Her Kids In The Best Way She Knew How
In an interview with CNN, Dr.John said when she first started experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, she was reluctant to call 911. She did not want her children to see the paramedics. Dr.John could not catch her breath and said it felt like she was drowning. She got down on her knees and prayed to God to take her under his wing and heal her. Her children were sleeping nearby. She was “so scared of them seeing her leave her house intubated” like one of her patients. When giving her account of these moments, Dr.John was visibly emotional and on the verge of tears.
She also prayed for time to say goodbye to her children. She made a video to say goodbye to her kids. “I just wanted to tell my kids they were the most important thing in the world to me,” she said. She felt that this would be the best way to say goodbye to them and hoped that the video would be played for them in five years’ time when they were older. In the goodbye video, she wanted to tell her kids that she “never stopped caring about them” and to “treat the world good.” She finished the video by saying “I love you and I want to be there, but I can’t.”
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Dr.John Felt Like She Was “Drowning” In Her Lungs Because Of COVID-19
While struggling to breathe, John’s said she “was drowning in my lungs.” She took her pulse at home and it was down to 85 and she knew what the paramedics would do for someone like her who was working so hard to breathe. Dr.John said that she felt like a “90-year-old woman with emphysema.” Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath due to over-inflation of the alveoli (air sacs in the lung).
COVID-19 can infect the upper and lower part of your respiratory tract. It can cause critical breathing problems much like the ones Dr.John was facing. Doctors can find this kind of respiratory inflammation from chest x-rays or CT scans.
She Is Now On The Mend And Recovering Slowly
John hasn’t been able to see her children since being diagnosed. But she has been FaceTiming with them to keep in contact. She mentioned that one of her children asked if she was going to die. She recently spoke to Denver7 News and updated her condition. “I spoke to my son and my daughter says ‘mommy, like, are you going to be like the patients that you treat who are dying?’ And yesterday, I showed them the video and my daughter said, ‘Oh, but you’re alive and you made this video?’ I said ‘yes. By god’s grace, I’m alive.’ The fear that I might get sick, I’m not Dr. John anymore. I’m a mom and a mom very scared of this still.”
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John says she has to be quarantined for another one or two weeks before she can see her kids again. She thinks that for a 38-year-old woman, her body is not healing as fast as it should. However, she thanked her community and her family for supporting her through this crazy time. She is grateful to still be able to receive messages and phone calls with her kids and is eager to be reunited with them soon.
