Bev Buker: A harrowing experience with COVID in the hospital

To The Daily Sun,

On or about the first week of November my body decided to shut down with the flu, pneumonia, and the dreaded COVID ... I couldn't talk, walk or function on any level. All this took one night to change my life from helper to helpless. Dressed in a bathrobe my neighbor drove me to the emergency department of Concord Hospital — Laconia where I barely lived for the next six days, a tube to feed me down to stomach which came out easier then it went in and was put back in a lot faster than the first one, a catheter, several IV lines by now and at least a half dozen professionals that were determined to keep me alive. These dedicated men and women gave selflessly of their time; I didn't know them they didn't know me. Every time a bed opened up on the fourth floor COVID ICU the bed was given to someone else who was getting better. Finally my turn came to be moved and four turns later I ended up on a COVID floor. I missed my favorite holiday sandwich the day after Thanksgiving but there will be another next year. Then I missed Christmas, no great ham and cheddar sandwich, but there will be another next year. Then the biggest shock, my nurse practitioner came to take care of me, who does these things? I had now been in the hospital seven weeks with no end in sight. I am now in rehabilitation over at Blueberry Lane. I have to push myself to get in and out of bed but I can do that. My little brother and sister have open lines to the doctors and slowly I can see light at the end of the tunnel. My best advice to all of you reading this put that mask on your face and don't take it off. It is your best protection. The one thing I have lost from all this is my hearing but it could be worse like blindness.

Bev Buker

Gilford