HIALEAH, FLA. (WSVN) - A Hialeah woman is detailing her monthslong battle with COVID-19 in the hospital, and she said her battle with the virus has changed how she looks at life.
Although Barbie Garrido has returned home from the hospital, she needs to monitor her vitals and oxygen levels.
“If it goes below 80-something, 85, and if it doesn’t go up on its own when I relax, then yes, I need to go to the hospital,” she said.
Garrido was intubated and spent 11 days in a medically-induced coma. She also spent two months in the hospital and in rehabilitation. Before she was hospitalized, Garrido said she received one of two doses of the Moderna vaccine.
“I would have probably died,” she said. “I think that that vaccine, just that one vaccine, probably saved my life.”
Her second Moderna shot was scheduled for April 8, but the day before the appointment, the 52-year-old, who has multiple sclerosis, was diagnosed with COVID-19.
She was sent home with medication before she was admitted into Mount Sinai in Hialeah and then transferred to the Miami Beach hospital days later.
“It was horrible,” she said. “The only thing that I remember was I told the nurse, I grabbed the nurse by the hand, and I told her, ‘Please don’t let me die.’ That’s the only thing that I remember.”
Garrido said she suffered hair loss and lung spasms, and she gets winded after walking a few steps.
“Nobody wants to go through what I went through,” Garrido said. “I don’t want anybody to go through what I went through. It’s horrific. Not only for me, because I had no idea what was going on, but for my family, my husband was going crazy. He didn’t know if I was going to live.”
Garrido’s husband Jose also contracted the virus and recovered. He brought photos and notes of encouragement from his grandchildren to the hospital to keep his wife of 24 years motivated.
“I didn’t know where I was,” Garrido said. “I thought I was on an alien spaceship. You hallucinate, and I asked the doctor after everything happened, ‘Is that normal?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s ICU delirium.'”
Garrido said they have five unvaccinated family members who have recently tested positive for COVID-19.
The 52-year-old also shared some advice for those unvaccinated as cases surge in Florida due to the delta variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Your whole life changes when you go through an experience that I went through,” Garrido said. “Because of a shot that you don’t want to get because somebody’s telling you that it’s– ‘Oh, a microchip is in there’ or ‘Something’s going on.’ There’s nothing in there! It’s a medicine to help you!”
Garrido said she does not know how she contracted the virus or what variant it was.
She hopes sharing her experience and battle with the virus will motivate others to get vaccinated.
“It’s your life, and it’s the life of your family, the life of your neighbors, the life of your child that can get it,” she said. “This is not a conspiracy. They’re not going to put a chip on you. This is to save your life and to save other people’s lives.”
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