When COVID-19 was declared a national emergency in March 2020, Stephanie Schroeder joined throngs of her neighbors at local grocery stores to stock up on toilet paper and water. Through spring and summer, the McDonough resident made all of the suggested life adjustments — staying at home, wearing a mask when she did go out, avoiding crowds and sanitizing her hands as if her life depended on it. Her efforts were prescient but powerless against a virus that has since claimed the lives of more than 21,000 Georgians.
In October, Schroeder tested positive for COVID-19, and for the next four months, her life would become a blur of hospitals, doctors and machines, all fighting to keep her alive.
Schroeder, 50, who had no preexisting conditions other than being overweight, would suffer two heart attacks, multiple organ failure, pneumonia and a host of other illnesses before arriving home still bedridden and still struggling to breathe.
A long-hauler, whose survival was declared a miracle by the health care workers who treated her at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Schroeder has become a fervent advocate for mass vaccination. “You do not want this,” said Schroeder, who remains under the care of 11 doctors. “I don’t wish this on anybody.”
Even if you get COVID and do not suffer such adverse effects, Schroeder feels if people understood, really understood, how their actions might impact someone else — physically, emotionally, financially — they would be just a little more compliant in wearing masks and getting vaccinated.
Georgia ranks in the bottom 10 states for vaccination rates. Last week, only about 41% of Georgians were fully vaccinated. Schroeder got the vaccine as further protection even though she still had antibodies from her months long battle with COVID-19. “I cannot afford another hospitalization because that would kill me,” she said. “I should technically be dead.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Schools in Gwinnett County had just reopened for the school year, when Schroeder began feeling ill back in October. As the varsity volleyball team mom at Mill Creek High School, where her twin sister is the coach, Schroeder had become the “mask police.” In addition to making snacks for the girls, she walked around dispensing hand sanitizer and reminding parents to adhere to protocols.
She tested positive just two weeks before the girls were heading to playoffs. Her husband, David, tested positive as well.
They stocked up on soup and Kleenex, thinking they were dealing with nothing worse than the flu, with low-grade fevers and fatigue, but by day three, Schroeder could barely move and was struggling to breathe. A pulse oximeter showed her blood oxygen level at 80%, well below the normal 95%. She made her first trip to the hospital, where she received oxygen and was discharged. The next day, she returned to the ER, this time in an ambulance. It was Oct. 14 and Schroeder wouldn’t remember anything that happened for the next two months.
Not long after arriving at Piedmont Hospital Newton, Schroeder was moved to ICU, intubated and put on a ventilator. Doctors assessing her condition knew they had to transport her to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, where the Marcus Tower had opened ahead of schedule to accommodate the surge of COVID-19 patients. Schroeder had to be airlifted to the hospital.
Two days later, Schroeder’s sister called the nurses station for an update. The nurses asked her sister to call back.
“We’re in a code,” one nurse said.
“Please tell me it isn’t Room 119,” said Schroeder’s sister.
But it was Room 119 and Schroeder was in cardiac arrest. Doctors revived her after 19 minutes, but 10 days later, she went into cardiac arrest again. This time, it took 45 minutes for doctors to restart her heart. The pulmonologist told her husband, who by then had recovered from COVID-19, that 100% of the patients in Schroeder’s condition don’t make it.
Credit: Images provided by Stephanie Schroeder
Credit: Images provided by Stephanie Schroeder
Schroeder would spend more than six weeks on a ventilator. She suffered a collapsed lung, double pneumonia, kidney failure requiring dialysis and MRSA that took five months to heal. Her journey with the virus would extend across four care facilities, 98 days and at a cost of more than $2.5 million. “No one realizes that. It adds up financially and in time spent. It is a full-time job just dealing with aftercare,” Schroeder said. “So many people have lost their jobs, insurance or their spouses. My husband is a saint for everything he has done to get me to this point.”
Sometime in December, Schroeder became aware of her surroundings again. She couldn’t walk or stand, but she wanted to go home. She spent the holidays alone and depressed at a rehab facility close to home where she was the only COVID patient and no one seemed attuned to the unique needs of long-haulers. “There are people who live in areas where the hospitals don’t have COVID clinics and where doctors don’t believe there are long-haulers. They are not educated on how to treat COVID patients,” Schroeder said.
In late January, Schroeder finally made it home. She still couldn’t stand or walk. She had to get in and out of bed using a slide. She ate her meals by putting food in a cup and scooping it into her mouth. When she stood for the first time in February, all she could do was cling to her husband as they both cried. A few weeks later, she was able to take her first steps.
Schroeder’s voice is still weak and raspy. She jokes that it makes her sound like a lifelong smoker (she is not). She is regaining strength in her arms and legs, but her lungs don’t allow her to push herself too far. Pulmonary rehab has helped but sometimes her blood oxygen level still drops low enough to force her back onto oxygen. She feels fortunate that the Piedmont Pulmonary COVID Recovery Clinic has helped her navigate through all of her COVID long-hauler symptoms.
Will she ever feel normal again? She isn’t sure, but she does know that she needs to share her experience in the hopes it will get through to others, including members of her extended family, who still don’t take the virus seriously.
Schroeder is frustrated and angered by anyone who is medically able to get the vaccine and chooses not to get vaccinated and by anyone who refuses to wear a mask.
“My wearing a mask protects you. I need others to wear a mask to protect me, especially if they are unwilling to obtain the vaccine,” she said. “If this was happening a generation ago, they would realize the greater good.”
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