R.I. mom to reunite with family after nearly a month hospitalized with COVID-19

December 9, 2020 10:39 am

Laura Pugliese,

CUMBERLAND, R.I. (WLNE) – A Rhode Island mother that has been hospitalized for nearly a month after getting COVID-19 hopes to get discharged and reunite with her family Wednesday.

Jessica Laverty says it’s been 20 days and counting since she’s seen her family.

“I’m 37,” Laverty said. “If you would have told me I’d spend over a week in the ICU, I would’ve told you that you were crazy.”

The mom of three from Cumberland works in the hospital at Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, but she’s typically not the one in the hospital bed.

Laverty says it all started when her husband, who is a frontline worker, tested positive for COVID-19. She got a test and her results came back negative. Days later, she started developing symptoms and on day three of her journey, she was admitted to the hospital where she tested positive.

Laverty says she was treated with steroids and oxygen and on day six, she was sent home to recover.

At home, she started feeling worse. She developed a sore throat, headaches, chills, severe body aches, and eventually, on day 12, is admitted to the ICU with double pneumonia.

“The one thing I will say is the pneumonia truly sneaks up on you,” Laverty said. “I started with a mild cough and a sore throat and then it just became really hard to breathe.”

From there, things got worse. Laverty’s doctor told her she may need to be sedated and put on a ventilator all the while her family back at home was missing their mom and wondering why they couldn’t see her.

“The doctor sat with me and held my hand as I Facetimed and told my kids that they may need to put me to sleep or sedate me for a couple days so that mommy’s lungs could start to try and heal,” Laverty said. “I got off that call and I just sat and cried.”

What happened next, Laverty calls a miracle and the result of life-saving measures from her doctors and nurses. She started to heal.

By day 13, her breathing shows just enough improvement to hold off on a vent. She was treated with Remdesivir, antibiotics, and oxygen. On day 19, she was taken out of the ICU and moved to a regular hospital bed.

She shared her message on Facebook with the hope to touch others and change people’s mindsets.

“What I really want people to know is that you can be young, you can be healthy, and you can be active and this disease still can ravage you,” Laverty said. “When you don’t see your kids for 20 days or you’re in an ICU bed for seven days, you realize that’s a short moment in time.”

Today, if all goes well, she says she will be released from the hospital and able to return home to her family in Rhode Island. She says she has a long road to recovery with lung and heart rehab ahead of her, but she’s just thankful she’s alive.