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OMAHA, NE (WOWT) — We are hearing from a woman for the first time – after she was unconscious several months while fighting COVID-19.
Her husband told us about her fight in September.
After 35 days of a medically induced coma, Patty Riddle is free from COVID-19, but it took so much from her.
“Imagine being 58 years old and relearning how to walk again,” she said.
Staff at CHI Health Immanuel are helping Patty regain her mobility.
What started as a cough in August, turned into hospital transfers from Omaha to Lincoln and back, and nearly every coronavirus treatment along the way.
“I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. It was, you know, there were many times I could have checked out, but I didn’t,” she said.
While she was out, her husband Ron was by her side, writing to the world on Facebook about what she was going through, like her collapsed lung and brain bleed.
Doctors kept saying Patty needed a miracle.
“We thought she had a week to live. It pains me to say this, but I was making plans to bury her,” he said.
She came to in early October as doctors weaned off medication.
Then came the questions, and Ron had all the answers thanks to his online journal entries.
“We are soulmates. Been together since we were 12 years old. Married for 40 years and he said in one of his notes, ‘I just had to go tell her that I love her. I don’t know if she could hear me or not.’ And I did hear him,” she said.
If therapy goes according to plan, Patty will be home for Thanksgiving.
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