Rowena Salas with her children.Photo: Courtesy HCA Healthcare’s Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center
Salas, who is still on supplemental oxygen but can now walk unassisted, had severeCOVID pneumoniathat was “life-threatening,” Dr. Michael Gale, co-medical director of the ECMO program at Las Vegas' Sunrise Hospital, toldGMA.
Because of the illness, she didn’t get to hold Oliver for the first time until March 3 — 98 days after his arrival.
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Rowena Salas with her late husband Jaime.Courtesy HCA Healthcare’s Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center
Salas, who said she’d been waiting to give birth before getting a COVID vaccine, toldGMAthat meeting Oliver “for the first time brought back memories of” her husband Jaime, who died last May from hemorrhagic pancreatitis.
“This is why I pushed myself to finish, to recover so soon, because of that moment, being with him and with Mia,” she added of the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, who was born right atthe start of the pandemicin the U.S., in March 2020.
When Salas woke up in January, she saw family photos on the wall, and it didn’t register to her at the time that Jaime had already died.
“I told myself, ‘No one is going to parent my kids like how we want to parent, so I have to finish this. I have to see myself through,’ " Salas added. “So I kept pushing myself.”
The mother of two said she is “so grateful for everyone who was there for me” during her illness and continued recovery, including “the respiratory therapists, the nurses” and the “physical therapists.”
“Everyone involved in my care I feel like motivated me to finish,” Salas said.
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source: people.com
