CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — One of UnityPoint Health St. Luke's Hospital's first COVID-19 patients is now home after winning his battle with the coronavirus.
Don Wheeler of Vinton went to the hospital on March 23 with shortness of breath and didn't leave until May 8. The 58-year-old man thought he had pneumonia, but COVID-19 had crossed his mind "a couple times."
"I just couldn't get myself to believe that I had it," he said in a video on the hospital's Facebook page.
Judy Hubler, a nurse and unit secretary of St. Luke's COVID unit, said Wheeler was like many of the patients that they've cared for.
"They're very sick, they need, they need a lot of care," she said. "I mean, it's very frightening, I'm sure, for them and lonely because there's no visitors."
COVID-19 patients need lots of high concentrations of oxygen, Hubler said.
Watch the video on St. Luke's Facebook page below:
Wheeler admitted that he was pretty scared, he'd never been that sick in his life.
He was the hospital's first COVID-19 intubation, according to respiratory therapist Brad Streicher.
"You know, I was just trying to tell him you're in the best care possible everything's gonna be fine we'll do everything we can to make sure you get off this vent and are safe and healthy when when that's all said and done," Streicher said.
Mission accomplished. Wheeler got off the ventilator and spent the last week of his hospital stay in St. Luke's Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
"I'm still weak, but I'm getting there. I'm up walking. These people are absolutely great," Wheeler said.
"Couldn't ask for a better team."
"It's almost like running a marathon, you know, when you get done it's... it's hard to do it but once you get there it's a great feeling," Streicher said.
Hubler said the work put into these patients is so rewarding.
"And that's why I became a nurse," she said.
And that's why Wheeler was wheeled out of the hospital surrounded by the health care workers who treated him for COVID-19.