Posted on 08/02/2020 5:29:39 PM PDT by NobleFree
A Lake Zurich man who was the second known COVID-19 patient in the nation to undergo a double-lung transplant thought the virus was a hoax until he contracted it.
"This disease is not a joke," 62-year-old Brian Kuhns said during a news conference at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "I was perfectly healthy. This thing took me down, hard."
Wearing a hospital gown and protective mask, Kuhns appeared at the media event with fellow double-lung-transplant recipient Mayra Ramirez, a 28-year-old Chicagoan, who was the first known coronavirus patient to undergo the procedure.
Ramirez had the surgery at Northwestern Memorial on June 5. Kuhns underwent the procedure there July 5.
Both patients spent weeks in the hospital's COVID intensive care unit on life-support machines, but they're now breathing on their own without supplemental oxygen.
"I'm getting stronger every day," Kuhns said. "Good people took care of me, saved me. It's a miracle."
Kuhns is still being treated at Northwestern Memorial, while Ramirez has been released.
Kuhns, who owns BK Auto Repair in Schaumburg, first experienced stomach pains, a fluctuating temperature and other COVID-19 symptoms in March, according to Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine lung transplant program.
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When Kuhns developed a cough, too, he went to a local emergency department and then was admitted to an undisclosed hospital to be treated for the virus.
Eventually he was transferred to Northwestern Memorial for consideration for a double-lung transplant.
The surgery took 10 hours -- a few hours longer than normal due to severe internal damage from the virus.
In a news release, Kuhn's wife, Nancy, said her husband thought the pandemic was a hoax before he got sick. During Thursday's news conference, Kuhns admitted he didn't take COVID-19 precautions before his diagnosis.
"I just went through (life) normal," he said. "I didn't wear a mask or nothing. But it's real, no doubt."
Because of the illness, Kuhns spent 100 days on life support and went four months without seeing his family.
Nancy Kuhns sat with her husband at the news conference. She said she feels "overwhelmed and thankful."
Nancy Kuhns also urged people to take the COVID-19 threat seriously.
"Stay safe and listen to what they're telling you about washing, masks and everything," she said. "It's not a hoax."
While noting a lung transplant isn't for all COVID-19 patients, Bharat said it may offer some people another option for survival.
"Mayra and Brian are living proof of that," Bharat said.
Thoracic surgeon Dr. Rafael Garza Castillon said Northwestern is now considering performing the procedure on other patients who've eliminated the virus and have no other significant organ failure.
A Web page established to help Kuhns pay his medical bills is at gofundme.com/f/brian-kuhns-and-family.
Automobile and airplane crashes aren’t a joke either. But life goes on.
Is he fat?
It’s people like him who are driving up second phase numbers. Now he is going to be on immunosuppressive drugs the rest of his life making him vulnerable to infections and cancer.
Strawman article.
No one here thinks its a hoax. No one has said it isnt real.
Its ben way overhyped, the demogrpahics almost exclusively affected are elderly, weak immune and/or prexisting medical condition. We’ve been inundated by fake numbers and 24/7 fear cycles and destruction of 10s of milions of jobs and politicians who mandate unlawful orders they get caught ignoring, mandages from pop control freaks who ‘love people so much thy will demand they get vaccinated’, etc etc
But no one here calls it not real. Its not wyt its peddled to be by a long shot, thats not caling it not real.
Poor guy was really put through the wringer - from the gofund me page his daughter set up:
“As many of you know, my father was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March of 2020. He spent about 2 months on a ventilator and was on ECMO (basically dialysis for the lungs and heart) for over 100 days.”
So anecdotes about how bad the ChiCom virus is are science, but anecdotes about the efficacy of HCQ/Zn/ZPac aren’t?
Got it.
The Wuhan Flu is unquestionably a nasty bug — but it is not bad enough to justify the draconian actions taken by governments.
The ventilator is what wrecked his lungs and the hospital got paid $59,000 to put him on it.
More propaganda, whipping up more fear. More people are killed EVERY DAY in car crashes and the common FLU that this supposed “pandemic” (which it isn’t anymore).
Precisely so.
“So anecdotes about how bad the ChiCom virus is are science”
Who said that?
Bingo!
Where did you read that? I didn’t see it in the story.
CCP-19 didn’t destroy his lungs the ventilator did
“More people are killed EVERY DAY in car crashes and the common FLU”
How nany have died from the flu this year - NOT some previous year with different health practices in place?
He must have comorbidities, like 90% of all Americans.
“No one here thinks its a hoax. No one has said it isnt real.”
It is hard to imagine that anyone thinks the virus is a hoax, after all the deaths. Had a neighbor down the road who died from it. But there are hoaxes associated with it under the belief that a crisis should not go to waste.
“CCP-19 didn’t destroy his lungs the ventilator did”
—
Maybe I missed that in the article, where is that?
Nope. Not fat at all. So far, he’s raised 13K for his Go Fund Me account though.
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