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H1N1 survivor tells his tale |
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Written by editor
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Friday, 13 November 2009 |
Dave Mabell
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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Like many Lethbridge residents, Frank Barva has been a dedicated runner. He’s pounded the pavement daily since he was in his 20s.
That outdoor exercise, doctors tell him, may be why he’s bounced back after a near-fatal case of the H1N1 flu.
Barva, now 75, is back on a treadmill these days. He’s looking forward to returning to running along southside sidewalks as he regains his strength.
But Barva — likely the city’s first serious H1N1 case — is meanwhile urging Albertans to get immunized as soon as they can.
“Get your vaccination,” he says.
“And if you do feel at all sick, stay home,” adds his wife Isabel.
The couple celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary this month, but now Barva says he has even more to be thankful for after his close call.
“I have a whole different perspective on life now, I tell you.”
Vice-president of the city’s Hungarian cultural organization, Barva says he was attending its annual picnic last June when he began feeling ill.
“The next day, he couldn’t even stand,” his wife recalls.
“H1N1 is so terrible,” she says. “It just takes over so quickly.”
After taking Barva to see his doctor, family members realized he wasn’t getting better. His fever was up, and he felt even weaker.
Soon they brought him to emergency, where he was assessed and sent directly to the city’s intensive care unit.
“It was a two-month stay,” says Isabel Barva, describing weeks of constant nursing care in ICU, with many days her husband can’t even remember. The pandemic flu led to pneumonia in one lung, and soon both.
“That was the start of our nightmare,” she says. “It just got worse.”
Barva stopped breathing, so the medical team put him on a respirator and called in a respirology specialist. Meanwhile, tests continued, with H1N1 confirmed on the third round. That’s when Tamiflu treatment began, and doctors began to get the upper hand.
But then Barva suffered another major setback. A blood clot moved up from one of his legs, heading to his heart and causing a near-fatal embolism. And just hours after it had been decided he was well enough to be moved to a regular ward, he was back in ICU.
Isabel Barva credits the nursing staff — and the specialist, Dr. Eric Wilde — for her husband’s recovery.
“We couldn’t have asked for better care.”
After surviving pneumonia and a cardiac event, however, Barva was too weak to go home.
“I couldn’t even use a toothbrush,” let alone walk. After two months in bed, he’d lost more than 35 pounds, much of that muscle mass.
After starting rehabilitation — and taking his first halting steps — Barva was moved down the street to continue his rebab at St. Michael’s Health Centre.
“I went from a two-wheeled walker to a four-wheel, and then to a cane,” he says.
Though he finally got home in late August, Barva continued taking part in rehab sessions at St. Mike’s. But they’ve recently been cancelled, he reports — because so many nurses were needed to run the H1N1 immunization clinics.
“But I’m exercising at home,” he adds.
Today Barva is working to become as fit as he was before his illness. After 38 years with Canadian Pacific, he says, he was one of those people who actually retired at 55.
But for him, that “freedom” gave Barva an opportunity for a second career, selling insurance.
“I hope I can go back to that.”
And to his running, of course. Barva is convinced his years of outdoor exercise helped him defeat H1N1.
“That’s what the doctors said — If you weren’t in such good shape, the outcome could have been different.”
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