‘It is not a joke.’ Coronavirus patient at Navicent tells his story

Tarveny Warren went to the doctor for what he believed was just a sinus infection. The doctor sent him to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, and the next thing he remembered was waking up in Macon.

“When I woke up, the nurses was coming in the room, and they was all just happy and calling my name,” Warren said. “I really didn’t know what had happened. I just woke up and didn’t know where I was.”

Warren, who also has diabetes and hypertension, had been unconscious for around three weeks while a team of medical professionals at The Medical Center, Navicent Health were trying to save him from the new coronavirus. After the doctors and nurses had almost lost hope, he finally woke up on April 12: Easter Morning.

When he was admitted to Phoebe Putney on March 23, his pulse was low, he was disoriented and the doctors said he was experiencing kidney failure, said Kimberly Warren, Tarveny’s sister.

Phoebe Putney transferred him to Navicent on March 26, and the doctors and nurses at Navicent spent the next few weeks seeing several ups and downs in his treatment.

They tried several different treatments, including having Warren breathing on a ventilator, using an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine and administered dialysis, Kimberly said.

Taylor Screws, a nurse practitioner in the Coronavirus ICU at Navicent, said they were struggling to get Warren’s blood oxygen levels up.

Although initial studies told physicians not to use steroids on coronavirus patients, she said they decided to give it a try.

“We got to a point where we were like, nothing else has worked for this guy. We might as well try it,” she said.

One of the physicians caring for Warren told Screws they needed to start having some difficult conversations with Warren’s family because the odds weren’t looking good, but Screws said she asked that they give him just one more day. They had just started the steroids the previous day, and she wanted to see if they would help before breaking the news to his family, she said.

The next day Warren’s oxygen levels were up and he was doing a lot better, she said.

“It was very, very much a team effort with the nursing staff and the physicians… and even Mr. Warren, I mean, his strength through all of this. He didn’t give up. We see a lot of that too if patients themselves are tired of fighting, but he definitely was very strong,” she said.

Caring for coronavirus patients

Although Screws said at the end of a day she is always worn out physically, she said caring for coronavirus patients has been particularly difficult because of the emotional and mental strain.

“A lot of medicine now is evidence based and with the coronavirus, it’s almost like wartime medicine because we don’t have clinical trials and everything to go off of so we’re kind of just, not making it up as we go, but going off what we have available, which isn’t very much information,” she said.

Working with patients who aren’t allowed to see their family members presents its own challenges, she said.

“If they drop their family member off in the ER, that could be the last time that they physically see them,” she said. “Just not having the families up here with them for these patients is extremely difficult, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have a family member up here and not be able to have contact, physical contact with them.”

Not being there

Although Kimberly and her family received calls three times a day from Navicent about Warren’s condition, she said it was extremely difficult to not be able to see him in person because this was the farthest away from home he had ever been by himself. Warren lives in Pelham, which is south of Albany.

“It was very scary and heartbreaking because we didn’t know the outcome and hearing about all the deaths of everybody that was going in at the same time and still trying to trust and believe that our loved one was going to come out. It was very scary,” she said. “We wanted him to know that we love him, and we kept saying, ‘If he could just hear some of our voice, he might wake up. If he could just hear us tell him that we love him, that he needs to fight, he would probably pull through. But we knew we couldn’t talk to him at the time while he was on the vent, but it broke our hearts.”

Kimberly said they were comforted by the nurses who kept them updated about Warren’s condition because they knew someone was caring for him.

“Even though we wanted to be there with our loved one, it made us feel better knowing that we had the ability of someone that we felt like really cared for him as if it was their own family,” she said.

Recovering from the coronavirus

Warren was discharged from the hospital April 25, and he said other than his legs being a little weak, he feels much better.

“I just happen to be one of the lucky ones, and I made it through it but... it takes a toll on your body. It breaks your body down, and you have to build it back up,” Warrens said. “It is real. It’s serious. Take it seriously. It is not a joke.”

Warren was able to participate in the “Hero Walk,” which is where Navicent physicians, nurses and staff cheer on their patients who have survived the coronavirus as they leave the hospital.

Everyone clapped, and Warren was told by his caregivers that he was a miracle, he said.

Screws said the “Hero Walk” helps boost the morale of the staff at the hospital as well.

“I think this kind of announcement of these patients leaving allows the nursing staff and the providers and everyone that was kind of involved in their care team to kind of see the benefits of all of the hard work that they put into these patients,” she said. “I think especially at times like these when we’re not even sure if what we’re doing for these patients is the right thing based on trials and stuff. It’s very rewarding.

“When we were able to get him off of ECMO was probably one of my greatest memories as a nurse in my healthcare career. Something I’ll always, always remember.”

This story was originally published May 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.