Greensboro Reporter

While vaccines and medical treatments have reduced the severity of COVID-19 in many cases, occasionally the virus can be debilitating, if not deadly.

Jonathan Shoe, of Thomasville, was hospitalized for about 18 months as he struggled to get through the infection.

“My whole goal was, ‘Get home, get home, I want to go home,’” he said in a Fox 8 report after finally being released. He attributes his recovery to faith and support from friends and family.

Shoe’s illness was exacerbated by the fact that he contracted MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) concurrently with COVID in February 2021.

“When I left my room in the ambulance that’s all I remember,” Shoe said. “They said I screamed and hollered like crazy until they got something to take the pain way.”

He spent two months on a ventilator, unconscious, before waking up and trying to assess his condition.

“At the time I had a trach, I could barely talk, I couldn’t move my head, couldn’t lift my arms, my legs, all my muscles were completely gone,” he recalled.

Then he had sepsis, which occurs when an infection triggers a chain reaction throughout the body.

“I had a lot of conversations with God,” Shoe said. “Some were good, some were bad, some of them I was mad at him, and sometimes I was happy to be alive."

Family responsibility kept him going.

He said he kept reminding himself, “I’m doing this for my son who is 19, and for my wife because they need me. They want me here and they need me here, and I want to be here with them.”

He finally was released in August, greeted by friends and family who cheered him on as he went up the new ramp at his house.

“When you’re starting from scratch, it’s frustrating sometimes and you have to center yourself and where you’ve been and where you are now,” Shoe said.