gofundme Colby Vondenstein and family
At 24 years old and without pre-existing illnesses, Colby Vondenstein should have a low risk for a severe case of COVID-19. But after contracting the virus, like so many Americans this year, at a family Christmas party, the father of three ended up spending months in the hospital to survive and needed a double lung and kidney transplant to survive.
Vondenstein, his wife, Tori, and their three children celebrated Christmas with their family. A few days later, Colby “started to feel bad,” he told Fox9, and took a medicine, thinking it was just “a common cold”. But soon, other family members experienced similar symptoms and all of the adults at the holiday celebration tested positive for COVID-19, including Tori, 28, and one of their three children.
At first, Colby was able to control his symptoms at his home in Crosby, Texas, and they just hoped to “let [the virus] take its course, “said Tori Today. But as she recovered quickly, Colby continued to deteriorate to the point where she was unable to get up to go to the bathroom, and on January 5 they had to call an ambulance to take him to the local hospital, where he was “fighting for his life. his, “she said.
gofundme Colby Vondenstein and family at Christmas
“They were giving steroids to try to help the lungs, but they couldn’t do much because their kidneys were failing,” she said. “They stated that … that he would not survive.”
Colby developed pneumonia, his lungs collapsed and his kidneys failed. He started dialysis for his kidneys and was put on a respirator. But with such a serious case, Colby needed more help and was transferred to Houston Methodist Hospital on January 11.
“I really wasn’t scared until I woke up, and they had all these tubes in me, and I didn’t know what was going on,” he said Today.
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Tori told Fox9 that seeing him connected to all the machines was “quite unbearable”.
“It was difficult to see my best friend, the love of my life, fighting for his life.”
Dr. Howard Huang, Colby’s pulmonologist at Houston Methodist, said his severe COVID-19 illness was “itchy”, considering he had no pre-existing illnesses, and they had to give him “particularly aggressive” treatment.
“He came and he already had kidney failure, he already had severe breathing difficulties, he progressed very quickly to need mechanical ventilation,” said Huang. Today.
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They put him on an ECMO, a life support machine, to keep his lungs and heart working.
“He became totally dependent on ECMO and initially needed very strong sedation,” added Huang. “The problem then became: you have a person who is now stuck in the ECMO machine with no really viable solution to get out.”
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After two months at ECMO, Huang started thinking about putting Colby on the transplant list for a new set of lungs and a new kidney, because “he really didn’t have much time with these devices”. And at his younger age, “he had a reasonable chance of being able to get over it”.
But it took a long time to find a donor, and doctors and nurses “were still doing everything they could to keep him alive,” said Tori. “On February 27, I arrived that morning, and the doctor stopped me in the hall and just said that it is getting more and more difficult and that time is running out, like days.”
“To see him go through this and to see him literally struggling to live, I can’t even describe it,” she said. “It is the worst pain I think I have ever felt. I can only describe it as watching someone being tortured.”
That night, they found a donor and Colby had a double lung transplant and a kidney transplant the next day.
Colby is now recovering in the hospital and four weeks after the surgery, he was able to take his first steps again, a “hugely rewarding” moment for Huang, who said Colby is well ahead of the normal recovery time.
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The family, who is raising money for his medical bills at GoFundMe, expects him to spend another two weeks in the hospital before finally going home and seeing his children for the first time in months. They also want younger, healthier people to understand that they, too, can be seriously affected by COVID-19.
“Even if you get sick, be more careful with your signs and symptoms, know when to seek help or a doctor,” said Tori. “You don’t realize until it happens to someone you love how deadly the virus can be.”
And Colby thanked his donor and his family for their “selflessness”, adding that he “does not want this for anyone”.