Chris's Story: Covid patient thankful for community
January 13, 2021
Sheila Harris
Last spring, Chris Whittemire, of Cassville, admits she thought COVID-19 was a scare tactic manufactured for political reasons.
“I remember telling people it will all be over after November,” she said.
However, a family birthday party for her mother-in-law on September 13 changed her perspective. It also changed her life, a realism she’s still coming to grips with.
Of the eight people present at the September 13 birthday party, six of them became ill a few days later, including Chris, her husband Mark, and one of their sons.
“I thought I might be catching a cold,” said 51-year-old Chris, who also struggles with Type 2 diabetes.
By Friday, there was no doubt she was ill. She left work early from George’s - where she’s a production supervisor - with nausea and vomiting. The nausea persisted and increased in severity until, the next day, she was forced to ask Mark to take her to the emergency room at Mercy Cassville. There, they admitted her and gave her meds which alleviated the nausea. They also told her she had tested positive for COVID-19.
Based on Chris’s positive diagnosis, Mark Whittemire assumed that he, too, had the virus, so after deep-cleaning the Cassville Westco store where he’s the manager, he went home to isolate himself.
Chris spent the night in the hospital.
“The next day I woke up and thought I was better since my nausea and vomiting were gone,” Chris said, “so I called Mark to come and pick me up. The nurses tried to warn me I was leaving too soon, but I wouldn’t listen. I wanted to go home.”
"The next day," Chris said, “I began coughing. By that night, I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.”
Chris said she believed she might die, the first of many times to follow when she experienced that sensation.
She was able to get her son Carson’s attention, who was in the room closest to hers, and asked him to take her back to the hospital.
Mark remained home in isolation.
When she arrived at Mercy Cassville - the second time in 48 hours - they discovered she had COVID-induced, rapid-onset pneumonia and that her oxygen level was dangerously low. They put her on oxygen and, because she needed more intensive care than what Mercy Cassville could offer, they began searching for a larger hospital with an available bed.
At 2 a.m., Mark Whittemire got a call from Mercy to let him know Chris was being transported by ambulance to Washington Regional in Fayetteville, Ark., the nearest hospital with an available bed. Due to visitor restrictions, Mark wasn’t sure when he would see her again.
At Washington Regional, Chris was placed in isolation – in her own private room, she later recalled – and put on a Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure (BIPAP) machine, which forced oxygenated air into her lungs and removed CO2.
“They were trying to keep her oxygen level up, so they could keep her off the ventilator,” said Mark, who talked to the doctors and nurses daily.
“I remember always being hungry,” Chris said. “I don’t think I was ever able to eat a full meal. Every time I took the BIPAP machine off to try to eat a couple of bites, my oxygen level would drop so low I’d have to put the machine right back on. Once, I even passed out in my plate. Luckily there was help nearby.”
When it became clear that Chris needed more help than the BIPAP machine could offer, a ventilator became inevitable.
“Her lungs were so full of pneumonia, the doctor told us a ventilator would allow them to rest and heal,” Mark said.
It was a scary time for the Whittemires, since the word ventilator carries connotations of a patient’s last hope for survival.
“I knew I couldn’t go on struggling for air the way I was, though,” Chris said. “I was wearing out. At that point, I was resigned. I knew death was a possibility with or without the ventilator, so I accepted the outcome, whatever it might be. I was prepared.”
In order to intubate Chris - and keep her intubated - the Whittemires were told that medical personnel would need to induce a coma and paralysis, since a body naturally tries to resist the procedure.
Mark, David and Carson were invited to come to the hospital to see Chris before the coma was induced, but they weren’t able to make it in time. She was already comatose when they arrived.
Chris remembers nothing of the next few weeks.
Because the tubing for the ventilator could only remain in one area for a certain period of time, a tracheostomy was later performed, so the ventilator tube could be placed directly into her trachea through a surgical opening in her neck.
As her lungs eventually began to heal, she was gradually weaned from the medication keeping her comatose: a state in which she’d remained for over three weeks.
The ventilator and the prayers of her friends were accomplishing their purpose, although she would need to continue using the vent for several more weeks after waking from the coma.
“When I started to wake up, I was seriously disoriented,” she said. “I was restrained and still in isolation, and I faded in and out of reality. I didn’t know where I was, and I had weird dreams that I thought were real.
“Another strange thing about waking up,” Chris said, “is that I didn’t know I’d lost the strength and ability do certain things. Like walking, for example. I didn’t know I couldn’t walk. Later, after they took my restraints off, I tried to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I thought, no big deal, but my legs wouldn’t support me. I would have fallen in the floor if there hadn’t been aides there to catch me.”
About three weeks later, according to Chris, they let her out of isolation, which basically only meant that the door to her room was left open so she could see into the hallway.
“You have no idea how good such a small thing like that made me feel,” she said. “It was like being let out of prison.”
With the door open, Whittemire also saw things that made her uncomfortable.
“Once,” she said, “I saw them wheeling a person in a body bag down the hallway on a gurney. It was pretty sobering. I realized then how easily that could have been me.”
In spite of the fact that Chris was no longer in a coma and was able to breathe on her own, her health crisis, she discovered, was not yet over. The COVID began to attack the function of her kidneys.
Dialysis became necessary, at first six days a week, later reduced to three. The need for dialysis meant she could not leave the hospital as early as she might otherwise have been able to.
The dialysis, doctors told her, would be needed even after she got home. Until they could find an available chair in an area dialysis unit, she would have to remain in the hospital. She was, however, transferred to a rehab unit at Northwest Medical Center in Springdale, Ark., where serious work on Chris’s part got underway.
“I had to learn to walk again, primarily,” she said, “and then accomplish simple tasks that I’d always taken for granted in the past.”
None of it came easily.
Chris is now home again with her family, but travels to Monett from Cassville three times a week for dialysis, a process which will continue indefinitely.
“They do lab work every three weeks to determine if my kidney function is improving,” she said, “but they can’t give me any guarantees of when and if I will get past the need for dialysis.”
Although Chris is uncomfortable with the attention she’s received, she believes it’s important to let people know that the virus is not a joke.
“If something as simple as wearing a mask could prevent someone else from experiencing what I have gone through, then it’s well-worth it,” she said. “There’s nothing political about it; wearing a mask is just the right thing to do. I may not have said this in the past, but I know now it’s about protecting others.”
Chris doesn’t like to ask anyone for help – not even the nurses in the hospitals she’s been in - but through her ordeal she discovered that sometimes it’s necessary.
“I’ve learned the importance of community: of church and family and friends and prayer – and nurses. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the importance of them before,” she said, "but when you’re in need of help, it really brings it home to you. I wouldn’t be where I am now without prayers and help from my friends."
After 78 consecutive days in three different hospitals and now home with a long-term prognosis that’s uncertain, Chris confesses she sometimes struggles to stay positive.
“I’m thankful to be alive,” she said, “but everything seems surreal.”
She says she’s lost track of her spot on the space-time continuum since her illness. Events that happened months ago seem like they occurred yesterday, and she sometimes abruptly recalls incidents from her hospitalization that she could not have called to mind five minutes earlier.
She wonders sometimes why she survived an experience that many others have died from.
“God must have a plan for you,” her husband and friends tell her.
Although Chris doesn’t know how to respond to their assertions, neither can she argue.
Sheila Harris
Last spring, Chris Whittemire, of Cassville, admits she thought COVID-19 was a scare tactic manufactured for political reasons.
“I remember telling people it will all be over after November,” she said.
However, a family birthday party for her mother-in-law on September 13 changed her perspective. It also changed her life, a realism she’s still coming to grips with.
Of the eight people present at the September 13 birthday party, six of them became ill a few days later, including Chris, her husband Mark, and one of their sons.
“I thought I might be catching a cold,” said 51-year-old Chris, who also struggles with Type 2 diabetes.
By Friday, there was no doubt she was ill. She left work early from George’s - where she’s a production supervisor - with nausea and vomiting. The nausea persisted and increased in severity until, the next day, she was forced to ask Mark to take her to the emergency room at Mercy Cassville. There, they admitted her and gave her meds which alleviated the nausea. They also told her she had tested positive for COVID-19.
Based on Chris’s positive diagnosis, Mark Whittemire assumed that he, too, had the virus, so after deep-cleaning the Cassville Westco store where he’s the manager, he went home to isolate himself.
Chris spent the night in the hospital.
“The next day I woke up and thought I was better since my nausea and vomiting were gone,” Chris said, “so I called Mark to come and pick me up. The nurses tried to warn me I was leaving too soon, but I wouldn’t listen. I wanted to go home.”
"The next day," Chris said, “I began coughing. By that night, I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.”
Chris said she believed she might die, the first of many times to follow when she experienced that sensation.
She was able to get her son Carson’s attention, who was in the room closest to hers, and asked him to take her back to the hospital.
Mark remained home in isolation.
When she arrived at Mercy Cassville - the second time in 48 hours - they discovered she had COVID-induced, rapid-onset pneumonia and that her oxygen level was dangerously low. They put her on oxygen and, because she needed more intensive care than what Mercy Cassville could offer, they began searching for a larger hospital with an available bed.
At 2 a.m., Mark Whittemire got a call from Mercy to let him know Chris was being transported by ambulance to Washington Regional in Fayetteville, Ark., the nearest hospital with an available bed. Due to visitor restrictions, Mark wasn’t sure when he would see her again.
At Washington Regional, Chris was placed in isolation – in her own private room, she later recalled – and put on a Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure (BIPAP) machine, which forced oxygenated air into her lungs and removed CO2.
“They were trying to keep her oxygen level up, so they could keep her off the ventilator,” said Mark, who talked to the doctors and nurses daily.
“I remember always being hungry,” Chris said. “I don’t think I was ever able to eat a full meal. Every time I took the BIPAP machine off to try to eat a couple of bites, my oxygen level would drop so low I’d have to put the machine right back on. Once, I even passed out in my plate. Luckily there was help nearby.”
When it became clear that Chris needed more help than the BIPAP machine could offer, a ventilator became inevitable.
“Her lungs were so full of pneumonia, the doctor told us a ventilator would allow them to rest and heal,” Mark said.
It was a scary time for the Whittemires, since the word ventilator carries connotations of a patient’s last hope for survival.
“I knew I couldn’t go on struggling for air the way I was, though,” Chris said. “I was wearing out. At that point, I was resigned. I knew death was a possibility with or without the ventilator, so I accepted the outcome, whatever it might be. I was prepared.”
In order to intubate Chris - and keep her intubated - the Whittemires were told that medical personnel would need to induce a coma and paralysis, since a body naturally tries to resist the procedure.
Mark, David and Carson were invited to come to the hospital to see Chris before the coma was induced, but they weren’t able to make it in time. She was already comatose when they arrived.
Chris remembers nothing of the next few weeks.
Because the tubing for the ventilator could only remain in one area for a certain period of time, a tracheostomy was later performed, so the ventilator tube could be placed directly into her trachea through a surgical opening in her neck.
As her lungs eventually began to heal, she was gradually weaned from the medication keeping her comatose: a state in which she’d remained for over three weeks.
The ventilator and the prayers of her friends were accomplishing their purpose, although she would need to continue using the vent for several more weeks after waking from the coma.
“When I started to wake up, I was seriously disoriented,” she said. “I was restrained and still in isolation, and I faded in and out of reality. I didn’t know where I was, and I had weird dreams that I thought were real.
“Another strange thing about waking up,” Chris said, “is that I didn’t know I’d lost the strength and ability do certain things. Like walking, for example. I didn’t know I couldn’t walk. Later, after they took my restraints off, I tried to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I thought, no big deal, but my legs wouldn’t support me. I would have fallen in the floor if there hadn’t been aides there to catch me.”
About three weeks later, according to Chris, they let her out of isolation, which basically only meant that the door to her room was left open so she could see into the hallway.
“You have no idea how good such a small thing like that made me feel,” she said. “It was like being let out of prison.”
With the door open, Whittemire also saw things that made her uncomfortable.
“Once,” she said, “I saw them wheeling a person in a body bag down the hallway on a gurney. It was pretty sobering. I realized then how easily that could have been me.”
In spite of the fact that Chris was no longer in a coma and was able to breathe on her own, her health crisis, she discovered, was not yet over. The COVID began to attack the function of her kidneys.
Dialysis became necessary, at first six days a week, later reduced to three. The need for dialysis meant she could not leave the hospital as early as she might otherwise have been able to.
The dialysis, doctors told her, would be needed even after she got home. Until they could find an available chair in an area dialysis unit, she would have to remain in the hospital. She was, however, transferred to a rehab unit at Northwest Medical Center in Springdale, Ark., where serious work on Chris’s part got underway.
“I had to learn to walk again, primarily,” she said, “and then accomplish simple tasks that I’d always taken for granted in the past.”
None of it came easily.
Chris is now home again with her family, but travels to Monett from Cassville three times a week for dialysis, a process which will continue indefinitely.
“They do lab work every three weeks to determine if my kidney function is improving,” she said, “but they can’t give me any guarantees of when and if I will get past the need for dialysis.”
Although Chris is uncomfortable with the attention she’s received, she believes it’s important to let people know that the virus is not a joke.
“If something as simple as wearing a mask could prevent someone else from experiencing what I have gone through, then it’s well-worth it,” she said. “There’s nothing political about it; wearing a mask is just the right thing to do. I may not have said this in the past, but I know now it’s about protecting others.”
Chris doesn’t like to ask anyone for help – not even the nurses in the hospitals she’s been in - but through her ordeal she discovered that sometimes it’s necessary.
“I’ve learned the importance of community: of church and family and friends and prayer – and nurses. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the importance of them before,” she said, "but when you’re in need of help, it really brings it home to you. I wouldn’t be where I am now without prayers and help from my friends."
After 78 consecutive days in three different hospitals and now home with a long-term prognosis that’s uncertain, Chris confesses she sometimes struggles to stay positive.
“I’m thankful to be alive,” she said, “but everything seems surreal.”
She says she’s lost track of her spot on the space-time continuum since her illness. Events that happened months ago seem like they occurred yesterday, and she sometimes abruptly recalls incidents from her hospitalization that she could not have called to mind five minutes earlier.
She wonders sometimes why she survived an experience that many others have died from.
“God must have a plan for you,” her husband and friends tell her.
Although Chris doesn’t know how to respond to their assertions, neither can she argue.
Left to right, Chris, Carson and Mark Whittemire are shown above at Carson's Senior Basketball Night at Cassville High School, about two weeks after Chris's release from the hospital.
