Surviving COVID-19

Vicky Haroldson lost consciousness in late March of 2020. When she woke up a month later and returned home, she found the world had completely changed. 

It was, she says, like an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” 

“There were masks everywhere, the streets were empty,” she says. “What kind of world had I woken up to?”

It wasn’t only the world that was different. Haroldson had changed too. 

 “Grandma, you are famous!” Those were the words of Haroldson’s grandson recently. 

Haroldson, who spent a month in the hospital and 16 days on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19, jokes that she would rather be famous for winning the lottery. But she’s happy, and grateful, to be alive after a brush with death.

Haroldson and her husband Steven, still don’t know how they came down with the novel coronavirus, despite extensive sleuthing on their part. What they do know is that they are lucky to be alive, and Vicky probably made it to the hospital just in time when she was rushed there by Mount Horeb EMTs in March. 

She remembers running a fever for a few days, and telling her husband she felt “wasted” one night. 

“I told him to go to bed,” she recalls. “Thankfully, he didn’t.” 

Instead, he called an ambulance when he saw how weak she was. He had trouble getting her down the stairs, and when she arrived at the emergency room, they discovered her blood oxygen levels were dangerously low. She was placed on a ventilator, staying sedated for more than two weeks. 

“What we learned later was that, if you are on a ventilator for 16 days, your chances of survival are about 50/50,” Steve says. “I’m glad we didn’t know at the time.” 

For Vicky, the month is essentially blank. When she was finally discharged, she remembers the nurses who had stayed by her side lining the halls to bid her farewell. 

Today, her recovery is coming along well. She can walk again – she couldn’t for some time – and she says she can get around fairly quickly with the help of a walker. She can’t yet do stairs, but she hopes to in the near future. Her organs did not fail. Her lungs have recovered. 

“I didn’t see my family while I was in there,” she recalls. “They went through a lot.”

One of the things Steve went through was having COVID-19 himself. They had recently traveled to Florida, and briefly to northern Wisconsin, but they have not been able to find out where they came in contact with the virus.

He got sick first, and his symptoms were very different than those of his wife. Unlike her, he had a cough. Also unlike her, he pulled through without needing to go into the Intensive Care Unit. 

Near the tail end of her stay in the hospital, when Vicky was beginning to regain consciousness, she vaguely remembers nurses setting up Facetime calls so she could connect with her family. 

“We talked to her a lot,” says Steve. “Well, we talked at her a lot.” 

“I was so anxious to get out,” she adds. “I kind of felt like I was in prison.”

Vicky and Steven were high school sweethearts in Mount Horeb. She graduated in 1965. He graduated in 1964. Their former classmates, along with family, friends, and people from across the community, soon came out to show their support. The Optimist Club held a car parade by their home. Family and friends lined up outside the house with balloons and signs. To date, they have received more than 90 cards. 

When asked what the outpouring of love meant to them, Vicky broke down into tears. 

“I want to thank everybody,” she says. “Family. Friends. The whole community for the support and prayers we received throughout this ordeal.”