A Missouri woman gets to finally go home after 377 days in the hospital battling COVID. Gwen Starkey was just four months into retirement when she was hospitalized with COVID in February of 2021. Over the next year, the wife, mother, and grandmother would wage a battle for her life, but, then this past week, she was finally able to go home.
Doctors, Nurses, and family members stood in the lobby of the MidAmerica Rehabilitation Hospital in Kansas City last Thursday waiting for Starkey to come down the elevator. They held signs congratulating Starkey for overcoming the odds, finally beating COVID, and getting released from the hospital. They’re especially grateful because, over the last year, there were several times when they weren’t sure she’d ever get to go home.
After 377 days in four different hospitals, on and off a ventilator for over 300 days, after suffering collapsed lungs, kidney failure and internal bleeding, and being isolated from her family, who at times were preparing for a life without their mother and grandmother, she is finally able to return to her grateful husband, daughters and grandchildren. Throughout the whole ordeal, Starkey kept her focus on getting better so she could be with her loved ones again. “This is what I live for, this family,” Starkey says. “I get to go home with my family. That’s all I want.”
Source: KCTV5