Hospital staff farewell ‘miracle’ virus survivor who cheated death
Arnela Regaliza, 42, is a walking miracle, a COVID-19 survivor who spent a record 107 days in hospital, including 81 days in ICU, 45 days on a bypass machine — and 12 minutes when she was clinically dead. READ HER STORY OF SURVIVAL
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Arnela Regaliza holds a record that nobody wanted — the longest time spent in a NSW intensive care unit with COVID-19 without dying.
On June 29, Mrs Regaliza finally walked out of Westmead Hospital, 107 days after being admitted, including 81 days in ICU, 45 days on a bypass machine — and 12 minutes when she was clinically dead.
The 42-year-old is the great survivor of the pandemic and testament to the world-class care she received from Westmead Hospital’s doctors and nurses, many of whom still can’t believe she survived.
The worst was the 45 days on a heart-lung bypass machine called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, where a machine does the job of the heart and lungs to oxygenate her body but even then, she “died” for 12 minutes.
“They call me miracle lady,” Mrs Regaliza said.
The former opera singer who is now a music and voice teacher suspected she contracted coronavirus on a flight back from the Philippines in early March but, after a week of no symptoms, woke up in her Oxley Park home on March 14 feeling breathless.
“I couldn’t breathe, I was gasping for air, and I said to my husband I feel like I’m dying,” she said.
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At Mt Druitt Hospital she registered a temperature of a perilous 42 degrees.
They both tested positive to COVID-19 but after three days Eulogio Regaliza tested negative.
Mrs Regaliza deteriorated immediately. Transferred to Westmead that same day, by nightfall, she was placed in an induced coma. She said a prayer as she went under.
“When they took an X-ray, both my lungs were eaten up by the virus, that night they said: ‘We have to put you in an induced coma’,” she said.
“My last memory is the sedations, then I woke up in May. I lost half of March, April and May.”
Mr Regaliza recalls in April he and his sons were allowed to visit her bedside, dressed in full protective equipment, because it looked like she would not make it.
“They allowed us in one time because everything was failing, the heart, the lungs, the liver, she had a cardiac arrest and she died for 12 minutes, it was as if we were seeing her for the last time,” Mr Regaliza said.
Sons Georgio and Giovan cried at her bedside.
“I really thought we could lose her. I could see tears in her eyes as we were crying next to her,” Giorgio, 29, said.
“Even though I was in a coma I could hear them, my boys were saying: ‘Don’t leave us mum, we need you’ and they said they saw me cry. My tears were flowing but I could not respond,” she said.
“Every one of my doctors said I could have died, I was the worst case.
“When I woke up in May I was so lost, I didn’t recognise anyone.
“My eyes were bulging due to the long sleep, I had the feeling like: ‘Where am I?’ but then staff introduced themselves and I recognised them.
“I lost two front lower teeth due to the (ventilator) tube. They told me it may take six months to recover. I was able to walk again after a week but my muscles were sore and stiff.”
Westmead ICU specialist Dr Tom Solano said the virus causes severe inflammation in the lungs.
“The inflammation in the lungs meant she wasn’t able to transfer enough oxygen into her blood, so we put her on the ECMO, which takes the blood out of the body, oxygenates the red blood cells, takes the carbon dioxide away and put the blood back into the body. Annie was on it for six weeks,” Dr Solano.
Staying immobile for that period of time is perilous in itself.
“You get lots of complications, blood clots forming, infections are a significant complication and Annie needed to be treated with blood thinners so there was the risk of bleeding,” he said.
“One of the significant complications in ICU is delirium, you don’t know where you are, you can have nightmares and hallucinations, it can be terrifying.”
When she was finally wheeled out of ICU, looking battered and bruised, the team applauded her.
“I was so grateful and thankful to them, but they told me I uplifted them because I was a fighter, but they are phenomenal,” she said.
At home in Oxley Park, Mrs Regaliza is still a little breathless and her beautiful singing voice is husky, but she can walk unassisted now and is on the mend.
The voice coach, who taught 2014 The X Factor winner Marlisa Punzalan how to sing, can’t wait to get back to work.
“I’m, just so thankful and grateful, but I have to retrain my voice,” she said.
Meanwhile Dr Solano has a message for those who doubt the threat of COVID-19.
“Do not put yourself at unnecessary risk, we need the community to stay on board with social distancing because it is a devastating disease,” he said.