‘I just feel like God has given us the ability to adapt as humans’

Charles Thompson of Joliet recently turned 47.

He has some heart issues for which he takes medicine. He also has anxiety, brain fog, short-term memory loss and nerve damage from the severe COVID he had last year — and he’s not stressed over it.

“I’m just happy to be here,” Thompson, the deputy director of men’s treatment at the Cook County sheriff’s department, said.

Thompson spent nearly five weeks at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox last spring including two in the intensive care unit on a ventilator where he had visual hallucinations.

In a 2020 Herald-News story, Thompson recalled his experiences in the emergency department.

“My oxygen was 61,” Charles said. “They thought the machine was wrong. They were just like, ‘How is this man even conscious?’ I think I remember people moving around me. All of a sudden, the lights went out. And I woke up 14 days later.”

Charles spent an additional week in the ICU on oxygen and was then moved to Silver Cross’ COVID-19 unit. Some of his complications included an enlarged heart and possibility of a heart attack (“I was told they had to use the paddle to bring me back when I accidentally went out in the ER,” Thompson said in the 2020 story) and a fast heart rate.

He said the virus caused his blood to be “so thick” that he received blood thinners to prevent blood clots.

“They told me at one point that it was so dire that, if I did live, I might need a lung transplant or be on dialysis for the rest of my life or need a kidney transplant or have heart issues,” Charles said in the story.

Charles also lost about 60 pounds in the hospital and his muscles had atrophied by his fourth week in the hospital. At that time, he needed both oxygen and a walker just to stand — and he could only stand 12 seconds at a time. Fortunately, Thompson’s insurance paid for three weeks of rehabilitation, he said.

By summer, Thompson was able to play golf and cut grass. The post-COVID anxiety, however, is diffcult to overcome.

“If I start breathing hard or coughing, I grab my oximeter and check my temperature,” Thompson said.

Even the side effects from the COVID vaccine kicked up Thompson’s anxiety.

“The next day I had flu-like symptoms, some body aches and I felt like I had the chills,” Thompson said. “I checked my temperature. No fever. There was nothing wrong with me. It was all psychosomatic. My brain took it further than it was. By the next day, I felt l like a million bucks.”

Because so little is known yet about the long-term, lingering effects of severe COVID, Thompson and his doctors still have hope that his post-COVID symptoms will fade over time. But if they don’t, Thompson is certain he will adjust to them.

“I just feel like God has given us the ability to adapt as humans,” Thompson said.

Actually, having COVI brought some benefits to Thompson’s life. He doesn’t fret over insignificant stressors and he relies more on God, he said.

“When you’re lying in bed not knowing if you’ll see family and hoping your body will get back into whack - a lot of stuff I used to stress over didn’t matter anymore,” Thompson said.

Thompson said he’s trying to live his life more in accord with God’s will for him, too.

“All the things happening in the world aren’t within my control. I’m a passenger,” Thompson said. “And so I have to go along with living God’s will instead of always trying to snatch the steering wheel away from God.”