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Covid-19 stopped the life of Dub Crochet.
The Bellaire, Tex., man had contracted a bad case of the coronavirus in August 2021 before being confined to a hospital for months, preventing him from enjoying milestones and vacations.
He missed the birth of his new grandson. Last year he wasn’t home to host Thanksgiving dinner. He also didn’t get out of the hospital in time to celebrate his 70th birthday.
Most of his doctors were not optimistic that he would be able to leave the hospital. And if he did, doctors told Crochet’s wife, he would likely be in a vegetative state.
But after 453 days in the hospital recovering from the virus and a series of complications, Crochet left the facility in a wheelchair to the cheers of doctors and nurses in time to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas at home for the first time in over a year. .
“It was hard for me to lay there over Thanksgiving [and] during Christmas because I’m a big holiday person,” Crochet told The Washington Post. “Losing that was hard.”
Crochet hit home in a new phase of the pandemic when, for the first time in the United States, more people who have received at least the primary series of a coronavirus vaccine die from covid-19 than those who have not , according to a report. analysis conducted for The Post’s Health 202 by Cynthia Cox, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Fifty-eight percent of the coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted, the analysis showed.
Although the unvaccinated are still more likely to die from covid-19, the disease can kill vaccinated people because the effectiveness of preventive medicine diminishes over time. Health officials in the United States have urged people to keep their vaccines up to date by getting booster shots.
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Crochet, who had no pre-existing conditions and was fully vaccinated at the time, tested positive in August 2021, his wife, Rachel Crochet, told The Post. A visit to an urgent care center to treat Crochet fever and low oxygen levels turned into a stay in the hospital’s ICU. He was placed on a ventilator four days later.
He overcame pneumonia, collapsed lungs, pancreatitis, kidney failure and what seemed like an endless list of complications from the virus. Every time Crochet started to get better, a new disease would emerge.
“Every organ in his body failed at some point except his heart and his brain,” said Rachel Crochet, 70. “The doctors looked at me and said, ‘He’s not going to survive.’
In December, Crochet was moved to a long-term care facility where things slowly began to improve, but an infection that wasn’t healing properly after another emergency surgery prompted his doctors to they postponed their discharge date.
It wasn’t until Nov. 9 that a nurse pushed Dub’s wheelchair down the hall of the facility as doctors, nurses and family cheered as he approached the exit door. Some held signs that read “Way, Papa!” and “Dub Crochet. You are my hero” on the way home.
In an interview with Houston news station KPRC, Crochet credited the hospital staff and her family. “God bless them,” he told the network. “They are my rock.”
This week, the Crochets hosted Thanksgiving. He sat at one end of the table, surrounded by his wife, children and grandchildren. They ate green beans and sweet potatoes prepared by Crochet himself.
The kids made Thanksgiving crafts. They did a little photo session. The family turned on the television to watch some football. For the first time in over a year, things felt normal.
“Did you ever think that papa would be at home sitting at the table?” Rachel Crochet explained that a relative asked one of the grandchildren.
“I feel like I’m dreaming.”
McKenzie Beard contributed to this report.