I told my daughter and son-in-law I can't wait to dip my toes and some warm
sand and smell the ocean air and then they had to tell me gently that you know
dad all the beaches are closed.
Hi my name is Steve Padilla and I'm here to
tell you what it's like to survive COVID-19.
For me COVID-19 was and the coronavirus
was a news story on CNN and the subject of town halls and keeping one eye on
what was rapidly changing and suddenly I'm sick and I'm not feeling well and at
first it's the worst flu you've ever had and the highest fevers you've had. Scary
fevers as an adult. At what point did you go to the hospital? Well um I went a few
times. I returned home from my trip on a Friday the 13th of March I ended up
going into the emergency room here at UCSD on Friday night. My fever was very
high had horrible symptoms but my oxygen levels were pretty good still so they
sent me home. By Tuesday of that week I was just getting worse
I was trying struggling to breathe and I wasn't oxygenating well at all and and
when I told them what those numbers were they said get in here quickly
and I came back and they admitted me. So I was admitted March 17th and within 24
hours I was I was in the ICU and intubated. So it all happened very very
fast. What was it like to be on a ventilator? That I have gotten this
question from people in the community. The good news is that in cases like mine
you're basically put into a medically induced coma. Which means you're pretty
much out. There are little periods I think it throughout the cycles where I
had some awareness that kind of mixed with dream state and produce some really
interesting dreams. They all make a lot more sense now that I'm out,
but pretty much you get you know I received very very high quality care.
I was not uncomfortable or in pain or really aware that I was intubated at all
and most of it I don't remember at all which is exactly how it's supposed to be.
Were you able to communicate with your family while in the hospital? Only at the
end. Only after I come I'd been extubated after they took me off the ventilator
and pulled the breathing tube out and I was in the ICU for a couple of days
after that and that was an incredibly emotional phone call. The nurses actually
helped arrange for me to take a call from my daughter
and when you're in ICU for a period of time where you're intubated there's a
little bit of delusion. There's a little bit of disassociation. Takes a while to
kind of get back all your senses and realize senses of time or what's
happened to you or where you're at. So a lot of it kind of blurred together in my
case. I didn't know I was on a ventilator for 11 days. I had no real conscious you
know real awareness of how long I'd been in the ICU. I just knew where I was and I
knew I hadn't talked to my daughter in a long time and I was having dreams and
delusions about trying to reach her and I couldn't reach her and having hospital
staff trying to help me reach her and of course turns out that was all part of a
dream that wasn't real but it reflected what more of my heart was. I wanted to
talk to my daughter. So when I finally could in the ICU they actually arranged
for me to take a call in the ICU which is not typical by the way they went the
extra mile for me. It was a very emotional phone call. As soon as I heard
my daughter's voice all I could do is cry and weep.
Do you have any long-term effects of the virus and did any of them surprise you?
Overall I'm hoping not. I've had two post recovery COVID tests. Both are negative.
Which means that my body cleared the virus. The real curiosity is what's the
level and extent and length of any immunity I might have. We really don't
know for sure. We kind of I'm told by my medical team that I
probably have some immunity, but the extent we just don't have all the data
in yet apparently at this point.
Do you feel that you're the spokesman for
coronavirus now? No I think I hope to be one of many voices. I think that
obviously being in the position I'm in I may have a little bit of a platform that
I can use and hopefully do so in a positive way that conveys my experience.
I've given most of my adult life to public service it's what I have a
passion for. I'm kind of a policy nerd. My backgrounds in law and public policy so
this is what I do and I love it and now I think this experience has really made
me reflect that I've got to do something with it going forward. When you get a
second shot at life got to make it mean something and now I'm even more
motivated. I've had people I don't know in my community constituents reach out
to me in recent weeks because they have a family member who's critically ill and
they don't know me personally at all but they just wanted somebody to talk to.
They wanted to ask about my experience.
How seriously should people take this Virus?
You know as a survivor who almost didn't survive. It just reminds me how
precious life is and how important it is to not be reckless not only with your
own health but with the health of other people. I think people need to take it
very seriously and should take it more seriously frankly in some cases. There
you know there are stories on the news every day now where you see people
intentionally being irresponsible because they're frustrated and believe
me I'm frustrated. I don't like you know being home all the time I would love to
get back to the way things were before all this happened but take it
from me I have no idea where I was exposed to this. I have no idea from whom
or where exactly it just came out of nowhere
and overall I was pretty healthy other than this. At first everybody was saying
that this just the critically ill patients were all really elderly and
then the statistics in San Diego County don't bear that out. That the biggest
group of hospitalized patients are actually a little younger
than that. So it can hit anybody anywhere and I think people need to really take
it seriously because it's a real thing. I've run into people in the community
that have actually said they don't think it's real and it's very real when you're
being wheeled into an ICU and they're gonna intubate you. It's really really
real and I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone. So I think I hope people take
it really seriously.
Do you have advice for other people?
Care for one another and take care of yourself.
It's an invisible threat. I saw some polling
recently that indicates that still large majorities of people still claim that
they don't know anyone or have a family haven't been touched personally by this
virus and so when you haven't been touched personally by the virus I guess
it's easier to sort of believe that maybe it's not as bad as it seems or as
the news is saying. It's an invisible threat as opposed to a very visible
threat. Something that some you know it's difficult to get your head around. So my
advice is it's real take care of yourself follow the advice of medical
professionals. If you got a miss doing what you used to do for a few months and
it saved somebody's life. I think that it's probably really ok.
How many days did you wait before leaving your house again? It was funny and I was still in
the hospital the day I was being discharged I told my daughter and
son-in-law I can't wait to dip my toes and some warm sand and smell the ocean
air and then they had to tell me gently that you know dad all the beaches are
closed. I couldn't wait to be able to do that so it is a little scary. Really
really careful whenever I have to go I go for walks but you know always wearing
the mass certainly when I'm anywhere near other folks.
Do you fear getting it again?
Oh yeah.
That's one of the scariest things for me.
This virus almost killed me and it's nightmarish to think about well can I
get reexpose? Can I can I get this again? What if it you know mutates in the fall
or next winter and I get a another version or of it or the worst version?
Because there's a part of me I think for any patient who's been through
this there's a part of you that wonders if I ever ended up in that situation
again could I survive it. Because it takes a lot out of you.
I believe so I'd like to think so but this was tough. This was hard and it was
scary and I don't ever ever want to be in that situation again. I love and
respect our medical care professionals but if I can be away from a hospital for
most of the rest of my life I'll be a very happy guy.
Did you lose weight?
Oh yeah full confession I probably could have used it's probably a good thing
that I lost some weight. I don't recommend this weight-loss plan. I lost
almost 30 pounds in just a couple of weeks.
Are you still in contact with the doctor?
Weekly actually I've been having video visits with my my doctor every
week and getting some once I was tested negative for the coronavirus.
I was able to actually physically go into UCSD and actually get blood work drawn
and things like that. Which all look good by the way. So I'm in regular contact
with my care providers who were you know keeping close track on me because I
you know my experience hopefully and the data they collect from me is something
that can be helpful in understanding this virus.
What lifestyle changes will you make?
Well I don't want to gain the weight back. I want to continue to eat
well and exercise better. That's a little bit of the silver lining. So again having
this experience really reorients you around
your health and around how whether you're in generally really good health
how that plays a role if you do become ill with something and it can it can
make a difference.
What would you like to say to your daughter?
I've said a lot of it.
My daughter's amazing. You know being a single dad with her for a long time
we're incredibly close. She took care of business while I was sleeping. That's what
she calls it. She says dad while you were asleep fill in the blank. The world
changed a lot. You did this oh the beaches are closed she says that. So I
did go to sleep for a little while and and she took care of things. So um,
you're amazing.
What are you grateful for now?
I think in my case probably like most
I hope I continue to appreciate everything more. Little things we take for granted.
We get so busy with the things that are demanding on our time for life we stop
too literal you don't stop and smell the roses as they say right but I've learned
to just orient myself to my surroundings and to just sometimes be quiet and still
and take in sound. Take in the wind. Look at a flower take in that color and just
appreciate it in that moment don't let anything else enter my head. I'm learning
that and it's it's it's something that you know the people you love. Your
friends and community. I mean I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful and
I've said this to the amazing professionals that took care of me and
helped me through this. I wouldn't be here without them. So there's a lot that
I'm grateful for right now.
What was the first phone call with your dad like?
It was emotional. He sounded different. You could tell that his voice was very
scratchy and he was exhausted. It was still hard for him to talk but it was
it I don't really know how to describe it except that I never there was a
moment a couple days there where I didn't know if I'd ever hear his voice
again and to hear that was very overwhelming but in a good way.
Were you worried about getting coronavirus from your father?
Once we found out that he had tested positive which was a Saturday morning I was
actually able to get tested Saturday night. I had we didn't know we still
don't know where he got this from. When he came home the doctors were pretty
they said you know practice the distancing. He should be okay because of
the amount of time from his symptoms. So I wasn't too concerned once he came to
stay with us but I was actually more concerned about us getting sick and
giving something to him in his fragile state of you know recovering.
What changes happened while he was asleep at the ICU?
He didn't realize how long he
was asleep that his team in the ICU might have explained to him you know you
were on the ventilator for this amount of days but he had no idea. So I had to
kind of explain to him you know how he had a partially collapsed lung at one
point. They proned him. His ox he was at one point a hundred percent reliant on
the ventilator. There were a lot of things like that that I explained to him
that once as he learned and he's filling those gaps in. They were frightening to
hear if you didn't already know you know we had time to process and work through
those things but he was just hearing for the first time.
What would you like to tell the UCSD Health workers that helped your dad?
A huge thank you. It was already
a tough situation but to not be able to see your loved one was that much harder
and I got phone calls twice a day sometimes from doctors.
He had amazing nurses at in the ICU. I remember calling them calling me finding
out what his favorite music was to play music for him just to kind of help lift
you know spirits in the room and I just want to say thank you and your work is
incredible and you guys are all you know really just heroes of this entire thing.
We I can't thank you enough.