For three weeks, Jeffery Michael Keene, a 39-year-old, struggled with COVID-19 and was admitted to the hospital.
While treating Keene, doctors tried to stabilize him without intubating the patient, but ultimately had to place him on a ventilator, reports Today.
Suddenly, Nicole Keene, his wife, went into labor at 34 weeks, and her son, Michael Wesson, was born unresponsive. Wesson was sent to the same hospital as his father.
But in a scary 48 hours, Michael died without ever knowing Wesson was born.
"I still feel like he'll come home because it feels so surreal. I haven't even moved his shoes from the front door. Maybe this is a bad dream and I'll just wake up," Keene, 41, said. "We had so many goals and dreams and it's just all gone just because he came into contact with someone — probably for a short amount of time — who gave him COVID."
After several days of fevers, Keene took Michael to the emergency room before going to the hospital.
"His oxygen levels were dropping," Keene explained. "I was listening to his lungs so I could monitor his breathing and his pneumonia. I was having him lay on his belly, his sides, just to help him move the pneumonia, cough it out."
Keene took him back to the hospital, and he was admitted. Doctors tried giving him supplemental oxygen, but eventually, he was intubated. While his blood pressure was up and down, doctors were able to detach him off the ventilator.
"We felt like he was getting better," she said. "And then that night is when I had the baby."
Wesson wasn't breathing and had no heartbeat when he was born. They took him to a neonatal intensive care unit. However, his doctors recommended that Keene not tell her husband about the baby. They worried it would make him nervous.
"I certainly never thought Michael was going to die so I didn't think it was really that big of a deal," Keene said. "I can wait for a few days if they're saying it could harm him."
On October 28, Michael had died.
Wesson left the NICU after six weeks. Michael was buried near his family in South Carolina. On Christmas day, Keene visited his grave with her children.
Keene said it's important to share her story, so people truly understand how serious COVID-19 is.
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