‘I’m blessed, I’m totally blessed’
COVID-19 victim grateful for his survival
WEST HAVEN — COVID-19 survivor Anthony Spina said Christmas is an emotional holiday for him, but this year his emotions will be in overdrive as he celebrates with wife and two young children.
“This Christmas is going to be a little different — but different because I’m alive and we’re all going to be together,” he said. “I’m grateful to be here — it gives me a whole new perspective on life.”
Anthony Spina, a strapping man who considers himself a “tough guy” who grew up in Bridgeport, calls the virus “evil” as it caused
him to be intubated at Yale New Haven Hospital for 21⁄ 2 weeks, then took him away from his family for rehabilitation at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare for another few weeks.
He was so weakened when he awoke from the coma at the hospital he couldn’t walk, could barely move. After doctors took out the intubation on Holy Thursday, barely able to speak, he told wife, Jessica Medina-Spina, on the telephone, “Get the Volvo and get me the (expletive) out of here. Come to the side door.”
That wasn’t happening. Jessica Spina, ironically, a longtime medical social worker, had to calm her hot-headed husband and break it to him that he would need rehabilitation. She too had COVID-19 at the same time, but rode hers out at home while their children, Louie, 4 and Allesandra, 1, stayed at their maternal grandmother’s home for 15 days.
He was released May 6 from Gaylord after seven weeks away from home and on May 8 started seeing therapist John Pacheco of Personal Growth Concepts in Stratford to talk about the post traumatic stress disorder caused by the ordeal.
It brought him great relief while hospitalized to learn from his wife that he was still being paid at his job and they were supportive, he said.
Since then, he’s lost about 60 pounds and counting, does a cardio workout every day and amazingly can now say, “This is the best year of my life,” — even though he can’t eat sushi or pancakes anymore.
Obese when he was stricken, Spina says, “I’m very mindful of what I put in my body now. I feel like I’m 25 (except for the flashbacks).”
“This whole COVID thing was a silver lining for my life,” he said.
“This is the best year of my life because everything was stripped from me — my health, my family. It was a major, major lesson to me. I ask, ‘Was it in God’s plan? I was pushed to the limit with this COVID — it was unspeakable,” he said.
He believes they contracted COVID-19 at JFK March 9, while returning from a long weekend in Puerto Rico. His brother and sister-in-law were on the trip and experienced cold sweats for several days after returning home.
Before the couple came down with symptoms they canceled a big first birthday party at a restaurant for their daughter out of an abundance of caution, as a couple of the would-be guests were pregnant and his mother has asthma.
It’s a good thing because they had COVID-19 at the time and didn’t know it.
He now says of his daughter’s would-be party, “If that birthday party had gone on, I bet you would have seen 30-40 deaths.”
Doctors would later tell him he had the European strain of COVID-19, which convinced him they caught it at the airport because those coming back from Puerto Rico were dropped off in the international section.
“That was the beginning of this nightmare,” he said. “I really believe what I went through those seven weeks wouldn’t be for anyone of a weak soul or mind.”
To lose the muscle mass and not be able to fend for himself or see wife was awful, Anthony Spina said.
“I would have been 85 percent better if my wife could have been,” he said of the initial hospital stay.
He remembers being a little more with it on Easter Sunday and shocked to realize he had been there so long. He remembers a nurse giving him half of her Easter dinner – ham, mac and cheese potatoes – but his throat was too sore to eat much.
Anthony Spina recently made a video on his ordeal for Gaylord in which he says of his treatment, “Yale saved my life, but Gaylord – they are the ones that got me home to my family.”
Spina said that at some point during the medical ordeal he “saw the light” and his deceased grandfather, late father-in-law and childhood dog.
The doctor told Spina there’s no scientific proof that seeing the light is indicative of the afterlife, but Spina still wonders.
“I feel that I did see the light,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s real, fake, but I saw them.”
Jessica Spina said that during her recovery and quarantine at home, “The only thing I had to lean on was faith in God.”
She too is a changed woman after her husband’s ordeal and disruption.
“I value life even more so now, I just cherish life” she said. “I’m more grateful now than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Spina said he sees therapist Pacheco weekly and it’s really helped.
“I’m blessed, I’m blessed, I’m totally blessed,” he said. “I’m grateful to be here — it gives me a whole new perspective on life.”
One aspect of it all on Spina’s mind is how the trauma might have affected his son, Louis, who came running up to hug him upon release from Gaylord.
Anthony Spina said the day he got home he took all his energy and climbed into his own bed for a nap. Mid nap he was awakened by the sound of cartoons, as his son, 4, was sitting by the bed on a step stool with the iPad turned up full volume.
When he asked Louie what he was doing, the child responded: “I’m taking care of you, I’m your security guard.”
Spina laments, “My son grew up at 4-years-old. … This virus is just evil.”
“I’m tough as nails,” he said. “That’s why the COVID could never break me — because of who I was in my life. The virus is not going to kill my character.”