Vital COVID Survivor Jerry Greenwood Is Nonetheless ‘Combating Each Day’

MORA, Minn. (WCCO) — He went from one of many Twin Cities’ most important COVID sufferers to outlive to a 54-year-old Mora man nonetheless struggling to breathe.

Jerry Greenwood appeared again on his greater than 100 days within the hospital and his unsure future.

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“They arrive in along with your file they usually simply shake their head. They will’t imagine you’re right here,” Greenwood stated of his docs who see him now.

Having a dialog sitting on his front room sofa in Mora appeared far off a couple of months in the past.

“Yeah his file is fairly massive. Everybody needs to take heed to his lungs,” his spouse Lila Greenwood joked.

Jerry Greenwood’s struggle with COVID-19 was documented by means of footage that captured the merciless actuality of a pandemic that, for months, they’d labored to keep away from.

“Hand sanitizer. Going out little or no, simply to buy and are available again,” Lila Greenwood stated.

A longtime service supervisor at an area automobile dealership and a diabetic, Jerry’s complete household grew to become contaminated final November. All of them acquired by with gentle signs.

“So, I believed properly, that’s what I’m going to undergo. However, it hit me in a complete completely different method,” Jerry Greenwood stated.

His spouse, Lila, instructed us in March this previous yr over zoom of her husband’s will to dwell. From a ventilator to an ECMO machine at Abbott, months of setbacks.

It’s time that Jerry doesn’t bear in mind. Studying to stroll and to speak once more.

In all, 114 days handed till he went dwelling in April.

“Lots of people assume, ‘Oh, you’re out of the hospital. You’ve made it, you’re carried out.’ That was not even half the battle,” Jerry Greenwood stated.

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“I by no means took something. Not even a vitamin,” Jerry stated of his life earlier than.

(credit score: CBS)

Now, coronary heart medicine, blood thinners and tablets for PTSD from the time he spent in a coma. In all, he takes 20 a day.

“I can’t carry far more than … level-wise,” he stated as he tried to lift his arms and couldn’t.

His physique might additionally take as much as a yr to get again to a traditional vary of movement.

However, it’s maybe Jerry’s respiratory that’s most jarring.

“You stroll to the subsequent room and also you’re preventing for a breath, considering, am I going to recover from this one?” he stated of the ideas that undergo his thoughts.

Describing it as a constant feeling of drowning that has once more despatched him to the hospital twice. Nonetheless, he’s targeted on getting higher for his household.

“The one half that I haven’t been in a position to do, I haven’t been in a position to get on the ground with my granddaughter. You realize, as a result of I’d by no means rise up,” he stated.

The small issues he as soon as took without any consideration and a reminder of the battle that for some COVID has left behind.

“The long-term battle is what I’m preventing daily,” Jerry Greenwood stated.

Medical doctors inform Jerry his respiratory must dramatically enhance earlier than they’re comfy working on his shoulders to get again to a full vary of movement.

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His medical payments have topped greater than $1 million and it’s unknown when or if he’ll be capable to work once more. There’s a fund set as much as assist.