Houston family shares experience with COVID-19 as warning to others
HOUSTON - More than 2,600 Texans tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday alone. That’s a new single-day high for the state of Texas. So a Houston family is hoping to help.
The Evans family hopes their story will convince you to protect yourself during this pandemic and do a better job of social distancing, wearing masks, and staying home.
"When they went into the hospital I thought I was going to die. They had a fever over 103 for four days. It was a very helpless situation to watch them get worse and in the back of my mind as their child I’m like my parents have COVID-19,” explains Lydia Evans.
After ten days in the hospital, Joan Evans is home. “I’m home but I’m not released from my doctor’s care. It’s been trying. I didn’t realize how hard it would be this morning to try to dress myself and comb my hair. I don’t know how we could have gotten it. The only place we were going is the grocery store. That’s it,” explains 74-year-old Joan Evans.
Her husband of 50 years is still critically ill. "My husband is in the hospital on a ventilator and there’s nothing I can do and sometimes he’s better and sometimes he’s not and it’s very heartbreaking to not be able to touch a man after 50 years. I can’t go see him. I have to call to find out how is he doing? Is he breathing? What is happening?” Mrs. Evans says through tears.
It was Lydia the critical care nurse called for permission to place her dad Ned Evans Jr. on a ventilator. “That man said your dad is within four hours of going into cardiac arrest. He is not getting enough oxygen to his brain and he’s breathing 80 breaths a minute. If you’re breathing 80 breaths you’re panting like a dog. You’re like literally going huh, huh, huh. All I’m thinking is God please help me, help me because at this point I can’t even hear what this man is saying to me anymore".
On June 4, 2020, the nurse connected Ned & Joan by phone. “My husband said honey I have to get on a ventilator and I said darling whatever it takes to save you I don’t care what it is. Darling I love you and that was the last I talked to him. I haven’t talked to him anymore,” cries Mrs. Evans.
The Evans family is looking to God for a miracle. "I know prayer is going to bring him home. I know that. He is coming home,” says Mrs. Evans.
The family says not being able to see and touch your loved one as they fight to stay alive seems inhumane and unnatural but they know why it’s necessary. Mrs. Evans still has to use oxygen to help her breathe. She’s a TSU Algebra Professor and can’t teach summer courses like she normally does so her daughter is trying to pay her parents bills. The family says COVID-19 has drained them in just about every way possible.
Even when the parents first fell in with high fevers in May, they were told they couldn’t be admitted into the hospital unless they tested positive for COVID-19 and results took a while to come in.
“So the doctor told us to take Tylenol to try to break the fever. Then days later the doctor said you’ve been taking that many Tylenol you probably got Tylenol poisoning. What the hell? Tylenol poisoning? You said to take Tylenol for the fever so what are you talking about?” recalls Mrs. Evans.
She says a day before she was scheduled to be released from the hospital she was also told she would have to share a room with another COVID-19 patient. "I don’t want to be in the room with another brand new COVID patient. I panicked. I said oh my God no. So they released me a day early," Evans said.