PARMA, Ohio — It’s been 57 days since they saw their loved one and heard his voice clearly.
“We couldn’t go up there. I mean that has to be by far the worst part not seeing him,” said relative Holly Gustin.
“Dad couldn’t talk on the phone because he was on oxygen he never had to be ventilated but he was on oxygen so it was harder for him to talk,” she said.
But on the 57th day, their hopes of seeing their loved one, 74-year-old Jerry Gustin, healthy and recovered from coronavirus came true. University Hospitals Parma Medical Center discharged Gustin on Wednesday. It was a moment of celebration filled with cheers and decorated signs from his family and team of doctors.
“I just love my family. I love my family dearly I really do. So hard to be away that many days it’s just heartbreaking,” Gustin said. “I’m just so happy that I’m outside, I’m breathing the air and going home and being with my loved ones.”
He battled the virus and won. In a press release sent from University Hospitals, only about 40% of vented patients, according to national statistics, ever leave the hospital after having COVID-19.
“I had a list in my mind of what I had to do and what I had to accomplish and I did I accomplished everything,” Gustin said. “I thank everybody. The whole team all the way down. It was tremendous it really was.”
Now this self-proclaimed 2020 pandemic survivor is hoping others do what’s right.
“It’s a killing disease. It will kill you,” Gustin said. “Wear the masks, stay six feet away and please do it and if you do it we can all survive this thing together.”
