He can soon return home
Did he and his family still have a glimmer of hope on 29th December? The 66-year-old was lying with 15 litres of oxygen per minute in a hospital in Quillabamba and things looked pretty grim. His son put all his eggs in one basket. He lifted his father into the car and drove six hours through the night to the Hospital Diospi Suyana.
In the missionary hospital’s A+E the patient was disorientated and was about to suffer respiratory failure. Shortly afterwards he was intubated and placed on the intensive care unit. Despite comprehensive treatment things did not get better but worse. The x-ray pictures pointed to an increasing deterioration in lung ventilation. It became more and more improbable that Don Exaltación would be taken off the ventilator alive. On 22nd January a cannula had to be inserted into the trachea below the larynx to facilitate the breathing for the patient and his management for the intensive care nurses.
For weeks his life hung on a thread, but neither the patient nor the intensive-care unit team gave up. On 13th February after six weeks connected to the machine the family father could breathe independently again. A day Exaltación will remember for the rest of his life. Yesterday intensive care physician Dr. Claudia Ramirez and Markus Rottler – head of the intensive carers – took the cannula out of the trachea.
We are extremely thankful for this hospital story’s positive ending. As of yesterday the survival rate of severe Covid-infections at the Hospital Diospi Suyana was at 74%. Our team of doctors and nurses is happy about everyone who manages to survive Covid. A reason to breathe a sigh of relief and to thank God. /KDJ
(The patient gave us his expressed permission to publish his story.)
