Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Over the past year and a half, Donnell Hunter has missed his daughter’s first day of kindergarten, watching his son’s outstanding youth football season, the birth of his grandson, and countless other moments, all due to his long battle. against covid-19.
His family said the 43-year-old spent 549 days in hospitals and long-term care facilities after contracting COVID-19 in September 2020, long before vaccines were available. He finally returned to his home in Roswell, New Mexico, on Friday.
“I don’t take anything for granted, that’s for sure,” Hunter told CNN Monday.
Hunter is one of 4.5 million Americans who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began tracking hospitalizations in August 2020, but his story is not unusual.
The average length of hospital stay for adults was 5.5 days during the omicron, compared to 8 days last winter, and 7.6 days during the delta mutant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hunter’s medical bills are still going, and the last hospital bill alone was worth more than $1 million, according to the family. Although Hunter is unable to breathe fully on his own due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19 complications, the family is now adjusting to their new life.
‘I thought I could fight it’
Hunter, who was working as a station operator for a gas company, was on his job in September 2020 when he started having trouble breathing.
His condition was so bad, he asked his boss to go to a hospital in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he said he “found out for the first time that he had Covid-19.”
Within 24 hours of returning home, Hunter found himself in the hospital again, unable to catch his breath. “I thought I could fight him,” he said, “but there was no way.”
At first, hospital staff told his wife, Ashley Hunter, that they could handle his condition.
Hours later, Ashley received a call that he had been flown to a larger hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than a three-hour drive away.
A week later, Ashley contacted her husband, but he did not answer, and said: “I called the hospital and they told me they had intubated him and put him on a ventilator.”
Seeing her husband in that state over a video call was heartbreaking for Ashley.
Hunter has always strived to stay healthy, despite some of his long-term health conditions, playing in the gym and refereeing youth football, basketball and volleyball matches.
When he contracted “Covid-19”, Ashley was concerned about how the disease would affect him, as Hunter had been suffering from kidney disease his whole life.
At the age of 15, Hunter developed kidney failure after being diagnosed with glomerulonephritis, a disease that leads to inflammation and infection of the part of the kidney that filters blood.
His wife said he had been on dialysis for 15 years before receiving the gift of a kidney transplant in 2015, and Hunter is immunocompromised due to the immunosuppressants he takes to prevent his body from rejecting his kidneys.
It was difficult for Ashley to explain to their children aged 4, 8, 11, 13 and 14 why he was away from home, and she told them it was okay for them to feel sad.
She said, “I told them we don’t cry because something bad is going to happen. We cry because we miss him, and we wish he was here with us.”
Ashley set up video call prayer sessions for people to join during Hunter’s time in hospital, when she was unable to be in Hunter’s room, and asked the nurses to place the call so he could hear it.
She said that while Hunter was battling “Covid-19” and its effects, Ashley struggled without her husband’s support, and she said she went through a phase where she stopped her emotions to get through it all, because she was afraid.
Hunter has been on a ventilator since the fall of 2020, and has spent time in 9 different hospitals and long-term acute care facilities in Arizona and New Mexico, where his family has tried to find him the best care.
On March 4, Hunter and his family arrived in Roswell, Ashley said.
Hunter was greeted at home by a group of people with balloons, stickers and flowers, and his wife said, “He was given a warm welcome in the house,” adding: “I think this is only for the person he is.”
The welcome Hunter and his family received was touching, but for him, the best part was meeting and cuddling his one-year-old grandson.
New life at home
And just a few days after he returns home, the family adjusts to a new lifestyle. For Ashley, she tries to juggle the caregiver role with everything else she does.
Before the pandemic, Ashley used to work for a local company, but the store closed in May of 2020 due to “Covid-19”, and now, with Hunter’s medical expenses piling up, a family friend has set up a “GoFundMe” campaign to help the family.
Hunter has come a long way, and he has a respirator at home, which he uses when he sleeps. An oxygen concentrator is used to get extra oxygen during the day.
Hunter noted that he has lost control of his right hand, but he hopes to be able to regain it one day. He can now walk, but with assistance.
“I can’t walk completely yet, I need a walker, I have a wheelchair, so it’s different,” he said.
He added that although he returned home, his health condition is still the same so far, so he still has a long way to recover at home.
Hunter hopes to recover enough to return to work one day, but he knows it will take a long time, he says.