Richard Soliz was infected with the coronavirus last summer. He developed blood clots in his lungs and staff at the Seattle hospital where his treatment was taking place told him that one could move to his brain or heart.
The 54-year old was placed on a heart rate monitor, oxygen tank, and later a ventilator. He was admitted to Harborview Medical Center in August. There he spent 28 days, with two stays in the intensive care unit. According to Soliz, his life was literally hanging on a thread.
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Soliz stated that he could not stop thinking about his staff after he had been able to leave September.
Soliz stated, "My goodness they saved my life." "In hindsight, I felt bad. It was something I felt bad about.
Soliz returned to Harborview Medical Center late last year with a message for his doctor, and other people who had treated him during his stay.
He told one of his doctors that he regretted not having taken the decision to get vaccinated.
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Artist Soliz had decided against receiving a coronavirus vaccination when they were made widely available for anyone 16 and older earlier this year. According to The Post's tracker, at least 223 million Americans have received at most one dose of vaccines. Experts in health stress that vaccines are safe and protect against severe illness, which has resulted in more than 5,000,000 deaths worldwide.
Soliz admitted that he was still confused by contradicting information. He would see one thing in the news and then have it retracted by something he saw or heard at the grocery store checkout.
Soliz stated, "You can't go anywhere if you don't have something to say about it."
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Misinformation online has fuelled vaccine skepticism. Social media companies have had difficulty removing anti-vaccine propaganda. Fox News viewers also received mixed messages regarding vaccines. Soliz said that she heard several myths about the shots. One was that they contained microchips. This claim was previously denied by The Post.
He waited to get immunized. Soliz felt sick in August. At first, he dismissed it as a flu bug. The headache began.
He recalled, "I can't even describe to you the intensity that headache." "I have never had a headache this intense in my entire life."
The fever followed, and then there was shortness of breath. "And I realized that this is not the flu. He said, "It's covid." On Aug. 23, he was admitted at Harborview Medical Center.
Soliz stated that he was focused on defeating the virus while he was there. He said that once he had beat the virus, his mind went back to the health-care workers who looked after him and many others. He said that he had "put fuel on fire unnecessarily" by refusing to get the vaccine.
He told The Post that he didn't intend to do it. "I didn't know what the right thing was to do."
Soliz described fighting covid as "a rollercoaster", but the hospital staff treated him with kindness and compassion at all stages.
He told The Post, "You can't assume people like that for granted."
CNN spoke with James Town, a Harborview Medical Center doctor, about the low spirits among some hospital staff. KING 5 reported that covid cases spread like wildfire in Washington this summer, when the highly contagious Delta variant of covid was widespread. Town said that Soliz's apology to and gratitude for the care received was "the kind of message our staff needed," CNN reported.
Soliz is now fully vaccinated. However, he still has scarring to his lungs from his covid exposure, which makes him winded easily. He still has difficulty sleeping. He is encouraging anyone who is skeptical about the vaccine to talk to their doctors.
He said, "Don't let your guard down."
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