He suffered seizures, and when his condition worsened, his wife had to prevent the doctors from disconnecting.
But his brother didn’t nickname him “Miracle Larry” for nothing.
After 128 days in the hospital, 51 with a ventilator, Kelly was released from a medical center on Thursday, allowing him to return home and hug his family.
When Kelly, a retired high school assistant principal, tested positive for the coronavirus in March, she said she simply “felt like she had a cold.” After her hospital admission, however, her condition rapidly deteriorated.
“While in a coma, I had pneumonia in both lungs,” the 64-year-old man told CNN. “I was agitated, so they gave me fentanyl to calm me down. I became addicted to fentanyl, so they had to stop using methadone and I had massive brain hemorrhage, which they say covered my entire brain.”
Doctors called Kelly’s wife, daughter and brother to the hospital, strongly suggesting that they agree to remove him from life support and tell him of his latest goodbyes. When they arrived, his wife, Dawn Kelly, saw Larry’s frail body and said his knees gave way.
“He was hooked up to a lot of monitors. Tubes everywhere. EEG in his brain. He looked horrible,” said her daughter, Jackie Kelly.
But when doctors insisted on disconnecting him, his wife recalled the last text message Kelly had sent her before putting him on a respirator: “I promise I will never stop fighting.”
“I said I wanted to live,” recalled Dawn Kelly, who told the doctors. “We all said that.”
‘You don’t want this’
With the support of her family and the hard work of the medical staff, Kelly finally opened her eyes on Easter Sunday.
“I’m very lucky,” said Kelly. “But on Easter Sunday in New York 527 people died, so people around me died and I did not die. Is it a miracle? I do not know, but this disease affects not only people but their families.”
“I am very sorry for the people who lost their loved ones, and everyone should wear their mask,” Kelly said through tears. “You don’t want this. It wasn’t easy getting here.”
And on Thursday he finally walked out of the facility gates to applaud his family, friends, and caregivers.
The first thing he said he was waiting for after spending 128 days in the hospital is his first meal at home.
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