LIMA — After six months in the hospital with pneumonia from COVID-19, Bart Recker is relearning the basics and enjoying his first days of freedom. He started with his first beer after COVID, joined by the medical team that saved his life.
Recker, 47, was discharged on Tuesday from Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center.
He lost 47 lbs. in those 175 days, which were marked by a series of intensive treatments from intubation, dialysis and the support of an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine to pump and oxygenate Recker’s blood outside his body, allowing his heart and lungs to rest.
Recker had to relearn how to swallow because of the incisions in his neck, which allowed him to breathe through a ventilator but now presented a choking hazard.
He now carries supplemental oxygen so he can catch his breath while his lungs heal from the pneumonia.
“We were always on our toes with this case, because his body reacted to the virus differently than we would expect it to,” said. Dr. Sandeep Patel, an interventional cardiologist for St. Rita’s.
Recker’s lungs “were so bad that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen to sustain his body,” said Dr. William Cole, a physician for St. Rita’s who oversaw Recker’s care. So, the team turned to an ECMO machine to oxygenate Recker’s blood for him.
But removing Recker from ECMO presented another challenge: his immune system started attacking his body, which typically does not occur in patients who have already cleared the virus.
“He went from lung failure to kidney failure to heart failure to the immune system triggering a response that he’s now attacking his own body,” Cole said, noting that the immune system attack typically occurs during the first week of the illness. Recker had been on ECMO for 75 days.
Recker and his wife, Mindy, reunited Thursday with the medical team that saved his life, celebrating the occasion with a toast on St. Patrick’s Day.
The long recovery ahead didn’t dampen his spirits as he reminisced with the team: “I feel great,” Recker said.
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