PHOTOGRAPHED BY MORGANA WINGARD

BRONX, NEW YORK - April 26, 2020: My mother and father came to American from Cambodia in 1982 during the war. Two years later I was born with a severe cleft palate. My dad named me “Lucky” because he said if I was born in Cambodia I wouldn’t have made it out alive. When I was twelve, I had to miss about 15 months of school for an operation where doctors  took a hip bone out from my left side and put it up top.  If I hadn’t had surgery I would have died.

That was the first time I got lucky. The second was with Covid.

I started to feel sick on the last day I went to work on March 17. I went to St. Barnabas Hospital on March 24. The doctor said my chest x-rays came out positive for coronavirus so I panicked. She prescribed​ me antibiotics and sent me home the next day. But, I got worse and worse. After a week, I was beginning to get shortness of breath so my husband called 911 and they rushed me to Lincoln Hospital where I was hospitalized because my oxygen was extremely low. I passed out. When I woke up, I started praying to my mighty God and never stopped. Never did I think I would be fighting for my life.

I was at Lincoln hospital for one week: from April 1st to April 8th. Then the doctor came in and said I was doing better— all I needed to do was quarantine for 14 more days and continue wearing a mask. I told them I have a full house at home so there would be no way to quarantine myself from them for fourteen days. That’s when they said they would see if they could transfer me to another facility. They said everything was covered so I didn’t have to worry about it. They just needed to do the paperwork.

They tried to get me into St Luke's Hospital first, but they said they were not taking any more COVID patients so I got rejected. The doctor said he would try another facility, Roosevelt Island, which is a temporary facility for anyone recovering from COVID. Early in the morning on April 8th, they said Roosevelt Island approved me and they were waiting for my transportation. So, I started getting excited. 

I called my husband right away. He wanted to bring me a care package with fresh clothes, but the hospital was really strict and said he couldn't come in at all. Even though I was being discharged and transferred to another facility, they still wouldn’t let me go down and get it from him. So, I had no way of getting the duffel bag. When the ambulance came at twelve midnight I called him. He was only about three stops away from Lincoln Hospital. But, he jumped in a cab. I told him my movements minute-by-minute.

“We're going down the elevator.”

“We're coming out right now.”  

He was standing right there with the bag when we came out of the emergency room door. That was the first time he saw me in person in a week and I could see that in his eyes he was devastated. He was happy and sad at the same time because they pushed me into the ambulance and I had to go just like that. The paramedics didn't waste time. They grabbed the bag from him. We exchanged a few words: 

“God got us.” 

“Keep praying.”

“Have faith.”

“I love you.”

“I’ll call you when I get there.” 

During the ride, I was still texting him and trying to video him, but it was pitch black. We arrived at Roosevelt Medical Center at 1AM. It's by the water so it was just freezing and I was really cold. They put me in my hospital gown and wrapped me up in the hospital blanket on the stretcher. They had my room ready and everything. 

I stayed for eight days of isolation to recover. I missed my kids the most and my husband who was caring for me since the beginning. After speaking on the phone with my daughter to let her know I was okay her voice kept playing back to back in my head saying, "Mommy but you are strong I and hope to see you soon. Get better mommy okay. Just come home. I can't wait til you come home. I want to hug you and never let you go.” I tried to hold my tears back because I missed them so much. In my head I reminisced of the great times we had. I got really emotional. 

At that point,  I hadn’t been with my family for three weeks and had to continue isolation for another week. I dealt with sleepless nights because of the dry coughs and vomiting nothing but mucus but the doctor said this is the last of the infection leaving my body so that's good news. I just request cough medicine to at least get me to sleep a couple of hours before the dry cough would start uncontrollably again. I still dealt with shortness of breath so I didn’t call anyone, just text everyone. I just drank lots and lots of fluids. I was always dehydrated and water helped. 

Everyone who was there had COVID and I was one of the youngest people there. I just kept praying for them. The first woman in the room with me was an elderly woman. she was quiet in her bed. She barely got up. I tried talking but every time I tried I just kept coughing. She ended up getting transferred to and then they took me to another room.

I was counting down the days to when I was supposed to go home, Wednesday, April 15, on Instagram. 

Because my mom is high-risk and we couldn’t go back to her place, my social worker arranged for a place for my family and I to stay. On the day of my release, they brought me a wheelchair and organized an Uber to pick me up. The whole time I was talking to my husband on the phone. I was kind of nervous because it had been a whole month since I’d been outside or seen my family. I still felt short of breath. It was still in me. I had to walk slow. I had an Albuterol pump in my hand for when I felt wheezing or shortness of breath. That helped. My daughter and son were asleep when I got home. But, it felt good being back and just seeing them. I was still worried if I could contract it again or if  I was still contagious and could pass it to my kids or my mom. 

I don't want to rush things. I'm just going to continue to collect unemployment while my husband's still working. I'm gonna just be a stay at home mom for now. My daughter needs assistance with remote learning sometimes. I talk to her teachers with remote video chat. I started cooking again. 

I just hope everyone that I met during this chapter of my life, the nurses, the doctors, and every one of my roommates make it. It's traumatizing. I pray for them all the time.

I’m a changed woman. This was a wake-up​ call for me. I never thought COVID-19 would catch up to me.

A few organizations reached out to me when they saw my story on Instagram. I guess it motivated me that people were paying attention to my story. It was my goal to share my story so people would take it seriously. One day I was talking to my husband and I said I would like to begin to publish a book about​ my life-threatening story of hope.  I didn't have anything to write with. But, my every time my nurses came in they would give me a treat like a snack. One day they gave me a puzzle book. I love doing crossword puzzles. I did a few pages and then as I’m talking to my husband I realized I had a pen and a book. There were no blank pages so I started writing on both sides of the cover of the book.  

Look at the stories of my life so far. I survived a cleft palate. I survived COVID-19. I made it here. My dad was right. I am lucky.