Tony showed the first symptoms of Covid19 on April 2nd 2020. it started with a fever of 39.9oC and progressed to coughing blood, severe muscle weakness, loss of appettite, taste and smell, and difficulty breathing. He bravely fought the virus for 7 days at home before being transferred to Tameside Hospital. He spent 5 days on a CPAP mask, with a continuous extremely high fever, severe chest pain, coughing and difficulty breathing. He has said “I thought i was going to die, i couldnt take a breath and the pain was unimaginable”. After 5 days fighting in hospital he had to be put on a ventilator. Tony was intubated on Tuesday 14th April 2020, and his condition got so much worse since the first minute of being on the ventilator and a decision was made the next day (15/04/20) to be put on life support and on a machine called ECMO which stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. ECMO effectively removes the blood from your body then removes the carbon dioxide from your blood and adds oxygen to it before returning it to your body. This machine is not healing the patient, it takes over their lungs so it can give the patient a rest and an opportunity to restore them. The doctors said that if Tony wasn‘t eligible for ECMO he had less than 10 hours to live.

Usually, ECMO is used for hours or days not weeks, Tony had to stay on the machine for 33 days, and every hour his odds of survival were dramatically falling. During his time on ECMO his kidneys and liver failed, he had problems with his heart and effectively every organ in his body was failing; he had to be put on dialysis in which he remained for 2 weeks. After coming off ECMO, doctors attempted a tracheostomy as it was the only way to be able to decrease the extraordinary amount of sedation and paralysation he was on. The first attempt failed as a couple of days after having it a blood clot completely blocked the tube and it had to be removed, and Tony had to be intubated again from the mouth as he was still very much dependent on the ventilator. Thankfully the second tracheostomy was performed in the operating room and was successfull. Tony opened his eyes a couple of days later, but properly woke up after a month of that, on the 30th of June 2020. He has no recollection of the last three months, which is normal as he was on an induced coma, he remembers promising his partner that he will fight before being intubated, and his memory restarts after the 30th of June. Even though he was awake and responding to commands and simple questions by nodding, he has no recollection of that.

During his stay in the Cardiothoracic ICU and the Acute ICU, Tony was faced with numerous infections, bacterial infections, viruses, acute pancreatitis a number of chest infections, which have set his recovery back repeatedly. But besides all the odds thrown at him, and one of the most severely critical cases of COVID19 Tony was discharged from AICU on Monday 13th July 2020, to a normal ward and hoping to be home soon. He is breathing on his own with no assistance for days now, and he doesnt require any intensive treatment.

Tony has lost 30kgs and the muscle wastage is phenomenal. He is working hard to gain his strength back and be able to stand and walk again, he is keeping positive which is amazing and admirable. His body has been battered by the virus, and when every hope died, Tony lived, and fought so hard to come back to his partner, his family, friends and collegues. He cant wait to take advantage of the second chance he was given in life and be back to normal, which can take time but he is confident, optimistic and determined!

His partner, family, friends and collegues were living a nightmare throughout the last threee months. The majority of the first two months were extremely negative, hope was taken away from them on an hourly basis, and very often they were given less than 10% chance that Tony is going to make it through the night. All of that, is in the past and all are extremely happy and excited that Tony is back, and he will be back to his old self soon, healthy and strong.

We are hoping to raise funds for two reasons; First to support Tony with his rehabilitation and recovery, and second to raise awareness and practically help the ECMO specialist team at Wythenshawe Hospital. If it wasnt for ECMO and all the doctors and nurses at both the Cardiothoracic ICU and Acute ICU, Tony would not be here with us, even now doctors are struggling to understand how he is alive, how he managed to survive all of the damage that COVID19 caused in his body. We are forever greatful to the medics and nursing team at Wythenshawe hospital, and are very eager to raise knowledge and awareness about this life saving machine and all the hard work of these people, who put their lives in danger and sacrificed their personal lives in order to literally save Tony’s life.

We should never lose hope and we should never stop fighting, even when we are faced with the impossible. Me as Tony’s partner, his family, his friends and collegues are so extremely happy to be able to see his infectious smile again.