Florida resident Enell "Trent" Porter who had hereditary congestive heart failure and diabetes recovered from coronavirus. Doctors say that they could not forget his smile and he was a special case while being lucky too!
Porter, aged 50 had heart and kidney transplant at UF Health Shands Hospital in late February and he recovered from the surgeries. After a few weeks, his wife and son fell ill, later, even Porter got ill, while showing symptoms of coronavirus, which he thought he had allergies.
But, a nasal swab test for novel coronavirus showed that he had contracted COVID-19. Irish Porter, his wife said that she called the ambulance as soon as she found his breathing went bad, while he could not walk places inside their home. He was treated in the University of Florida Health.
He was on ventilator and induced coma
In the hospital, he showed severe respiratory distress, while he went on a ventilator and medically induced coma so that it protected his fragile new organs, said the hospital, reported CNN. He told his wife, "This isn't over, just before he was put on the ventilator. The words helped her through her hardest days as Porter was treated. Porter got well, while he first told his wife "I made it back".
He made it
"Dr Juan Vilaro, his cardiologist at the hospital "became a real friend," Porter said as the doctor made him feel that he was "more than just a patient," Vilaro said that Porter developed severe coronavirus infection in less than 30 days, making the case more complicated than others as it was combined with the risk that had to do with his heart and kidney transplant.
He had at a high risk of COVID-19 being fatal as he was intensely immuno-suppressed. "This was a man who had been fighting for years to get definitive treatment for his failing heart," Vilaro told CNN. But the doctor calls him very lucky, as he recovered despite the risk category he was in.
Like threading a needle in a single hand
"It was like threading a needle with one hand," Kartik Cherabudd said, as it became a tough choice for his treatment because coronavirus parts of the immune system go into "overdrive" that was when the choice of drugs became difficult. "One choice worsens the other," Cherabuddi, Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at the Univerisity of Florida Health added.
Everyone who knew Porter would know his smile. "We knew how badly he wanted to fight," Vilaro said and added that with team effort and prayers, he lived to tell his story "still smiling."
Porter's family message
One message that Porter's family had to people during the coronavirus pandemic is to follow social distancing, wash hands, and to stay home. If not, the coronavirus would harm the elderly and those on immune-suppressant medications like Porter himself.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also taken a huge emotional toll on patients like Porter, said Cherabuddi, who has seen family members admitted for coronavirus simultaneously and patients who couldn't go back home as they did not want to expose the infection to others. Such emotional issues prove to be as challenging as medical issues, he added. Porter's five-year-old son, Caleb said he was very, very excited after his dad recovered.
