Searching for footing in a life nearly extinguished by COVID
WESTFIELD, Ind. (AP) — On line in the hospital atrium, Kari Wegg folds her hands in her lap while husband Rodney pilots the wheelchair, moving forward together a few feet at a time, their progress halting but methodical.
After all the years the two have worked in hospitals -- and the long months last summer and fall that Kari spent confined to an intensive care bed -- what’s another half hour now?
“Any risk factors for COVID?” a hospital employee asks when they reach the vaccine check-in desk.
“Double lung transplant for COVID,” Kari says, quietly.
“All right, it’s your graduation day today,” the worker replies.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — First in an occasional series, COVID’s Scars, looking at how some of those battered by the pandemic are trying to recover after a year of pain and loss.
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Behind her mask, Kari, a 48-year-old career nurse, rolls her eyes. Before the coronavirus nearly killed her, any thought of graduating from the life she shared with Rodney had never entered her mind.
Back then, arriving for shifts at St. Vincent Women’s Hospital in her purple muscle car, she relished the satisfaction she felt caring for sick or struggling newborns. At home, she herded and hugged the couple’s 13- and 14-year-old sons, Gunnar and Gavin, and doted on four dogs, three snakes, and the 10 Bengal cats she and Rodney bred as a sideline. In between, she read tarot cards and shot target practice and planted vegetables. And on Saturdays, she donned a Viking robe and battled other reenactors, armed with a 10-foot spear. Rodney called her a “badass nurse.”
Now, like so many health care workers battered by the pandemic, she is searching for footing in a life after COVID. But the scars across her chest and neck are constant reminders that it takes much...
