A North Carolina woman who believed she could “escape” COVID because she was healthy is now urging people to get vaccinated after a “devastating” battle with the virus that landed her in the hospital for nearly two weeks.
“I thought I was healthy enough and that I could escape it,” Linda Edwards told ABC13 News. She said her bout with COVID “was the most frightening thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”
She was hospitalized for about two weeks. “It was devastating. I had no dreams of ever staying that long. It’s the longest I’ve ever been in the hospital,” she said.
During that time she hoped her son, who had also tested positive for the virus, was in much better shape than her. He wasn’t.
Her son Shane was airlifted to the hospital and was staying in the room right next to her, but she said doctors didn’t tell her because they didn’t want to worry her.
He was suffering from renal failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) brought on by COVID infection.
They are now out of the hospital and at home with a new perspective on COVID vaccines.
“It’s changed my whole life. I’ll never be the same,” Edwards said. “I just thought if I live through this, I want to go on a mission to try to help people to see that it is not worth not taking the vaccine because of what it can do to your family. We could’ve easily have had two funerals.”
She said her story has inspired others to get vaccinated in Graham County which is seeing the highest rate of new COVID-19 cases in North Carolina. So far, only 33% of the county’s population have received one dose of the COVID vaccine and 31% fully vaccinated.
Edwards said she plans to get her first shot as soon as she can and her only regret is that she didn’t get it sooner.
