“Cutting grass, you know, shoveling snow, taking out the trash, getting the mail.”
All of those seemingly simple activities are now a distant memory for Bobby Jackson.
He woke up July 21 with an uncontrollable cough.
“It affected me like super, super fast,” Jackson said.
His wife rushed him from their Saginaw Township home to Covenant where he was diagnosed with COVID.
It wasn’t long before his body went into respiratory heart failure.
“I was about to die,” he said.
That July 21 diagnosis led him to the University of Michigan where he was on a ventilator for 52 days.
Him, his wife and his son weren’t sure he’d make it as his body, already fighting an autoimmune disease, tried to fight off COVID.
But on October 23, after two hospitals and rehabilitation, Jackson came home.
“I do count my blessings that I’m alive because ultimately, by statistics and data, it shows that I shouldn’t have survived,” he said.
Life is much different now being dependent on oxygen and a walker, but he hopes his story encourages others to take this virus seriously.
He washed his hands, wore a mask and sanitized and still caught it.
His advice for those watching?
“Stay home.”
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