SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio woman is continuing her recovery from COVID-19 after spending weeks in the hospital and making it through a coma.
“I had to learn how to walk again. I have to learn how to write. I’m on oxygen 24/7,” said Christina Morales, 42, who began having body aches on June 6.
“I went to get tested on June 9. I got the results that I was COVID-positive,” Morales said.
By June 11, Morales said she was struggling to breathe and ended up at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital in the Medical Center.
“I just remember struggling to breathe in (the intensive care unit), and the last thing I remember is waking up on June 28, frantic and scared. I didn’t realize I had gone into a coma,” Morales said.
Morales said she was placed into a medically induced coma and intubated. Doctors put a tube down her throat so she could be put on a ventilator to help her breathe.
The coma lasted 18 days.
“I asked myself, ‘How did I get this sick?’ I’ve never been -- you know --I’ve gotten the flu, but I’m able to fight it off within two, three days,” Morales said.
Morales said it’s now challenging to move around her house.
“I’m on several inhalers, steroids, and then all my vitamins that I take daily. Then, of course, my oxygen that I have to have on,” Morales said.
Morales said it’s still unknown how long she will be dealing with these lingering effects of COVID-19.
“It could take three months, a year. It just depends on me and how much damage I have to my lungs because of the intubation. So I just got to take it one day at a time,” Morales said.
Morales has a message for those who do not believe COVID-19 is real.
“I hear a lot of people that don’t believe in it ... think it’s a hoax. ‘It’s the government, the government running it.’ No. It nearly took my life. I’m lucky to be here today,” Morales said.
Morales said she had no underlying medical conditions. She said her husband and kids also tested positive for COVID-19, but they are doing OK.