SAN ANTONIO – Several hundred staff members at Northeast Baptist Hospital burst into cheers and applause Friday for Pamela Oakley, its first COVID-19 survivor to be taken off a ventilator, who was finally discharged.
"The staff here was A plus," Oakley said.
She had been hospitalized for nearly a month, and 20 of those days she was sedated on a ventilator.
"It's just still strange trying to wrap my head around everything that happened," Oakley said.
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What she thought were allergies, then the flu, led to difficulty breathing, Oakley said.
So, she called her doctor.
“When he heard me talking, he says, ‘You get to the emergency room right now,’” Oakley said.
Once in intensive care, Oakley said, her family thought to give the staff CD's of her daughter's music.
Jenna Faith is a Christian recording artist in Nashville. Oakley is part of her daughter’s music ministry.
“Me and my mom have always communicated through my music,” Faith said. “So to know there’s that extra reassurance — I can have my voice in her head while she was on a ventilator — it was really awesome.”
Oakley offered a message to those still struggling with COVID-19.
"You just got to fight. You got to pray. You got to keep faith, being in God's will," Oakley said.
When asked about the effort to re-open some businesses even as more cases and deaths are being reported in Texas, Oakley said, “You can’t throw caution to the wind, but you also can’t live in fear.”