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Thursday, July 31, 2025

COVID-19 survivor: Vaccination is like a bullet proof vest

by

1294 days ago
20220113

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While most peo­ple sur­vive COVID-19, de­vel­op­ing a se­vere bout of the virus feels like you are breath­ing through a straw.

While lay­ing on a bed at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty for 16 days, Brent Tex­iera fell un­con­scious sev­er­al times due to a lack of oxy­gen, de­spite hav­ing an oxy­gen mask on his face.

Alive to share his sto­ry on Aakash Vani 106.5 FM Morn­ing Pan­chay­at yes­ter­day, the Pe­tit Val­ley res­i­dent warned that COVID-19 could be one of the worst trau­ma some­one could suf­fer.

“It is the most hor­ri­ble feel­ing. It feels like you are drown­ing. It is like try­ing to breathe through a straw. That is the amount of oxy­gen you get in your lungs, so you need to be men­tal­ly able to deal with this thing. You have to con­scious­ly breathe in and out. Your nor­mal breath­ing ac­tion is not enough to keep you alive,” Tex­iera said.

He de­scribes vac­ci­na­tion as a bul­let­proof vest. It does not pre­vent you from get­ting shot but de­creas­es your chances sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Mov­ing be­comes a mighty task as just turn­ing on a bed could leave you gasp­ing for breath. For the first five days in the hos­pi­tal, Tex­iera’s blood oxy­gen sat­u­ra­tion lev­el failed to reach 80, and his chance of sur­vival was slim.

At 59, Tex­iera was healthy. He ate well and ran six kilo­me­tres sev­er­al times a week.

But that did not stop him from con­tract­ing COVID-19 in Oc­to­ber 2020, when vac­cines were not yet avail­able.

His first in­di­ca­tor was he could not smell any­thing, a tell-tale sign. He went to the St James Med­ical Com­plex, where a nurse ques­tioned his symp­toms.

How­ev­er, she told him that he did not have COVID-19 and sent him home. Un­sat­is­fied, he asked to speak to the doc­tor, who screened him again and came to the same con­clu­sion.
Con­vinced he had COVID-19, Tex­iera went to the pri­vate doc­tor who did a chest x-ray and di­ag­nosed him with COVID-19, de­spite not do­ing a con­fir­ma­to­ry test.

He said peo­ple wor­ry about get­ting poor treat­ment at pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tions, so they some­times choose to treat them­selves at home. But when COVID-19 rat­tles your lungs, you have lit­tle choice.

“I tried to fight this thing off at home, but I was not suc­cess­ful at that, so I had to end up in the hos­pi­tal. The symp­toms I got were quite mild. Mild headache, so take two Panadol, and it went away. The fever, you take two Panadol, and it goes away, so it was nev­er some­thing I felt was get­ting away from me. Every­thing was man­age­able.”

Hon­ey, lime, vapour rub were his am­mu­ni­tion against the virus. But a week in­to home treat­ment, he be­gan strug­gling to breathe.

 “I was test­ed af­ter I ar­rived at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in an am­bu­lance, and I was pos­i­tive,” he said.

He de­scribes the care at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal as fan­tas­tic and says the doc­tors, nurs­es and at­ten­dants are won­der­ful. More than a year lat­er, he is vac­ci­nat­ed and is en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple that it is one of the best pre­ven­tion against dy­ing from COVID-19.


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