On March 25, Jay Bialkowski, a 54-year-old public safety officer at Hartford Hospital, was tested for COVID-19 and headed home, feeling well enough to recuperate at his home in Glastonbury. Within a very short time, he found himself fighting to breathe and shouted out to his wife and daughter, “Call 9-1-1!”

By the time Jay arrived at the Emergency Department at Hartford Hospital, he was critically ill and in “true jeopardy,” according to Dr. Megan Panico, a pulmonary medicine specialist at the hospital, and one of the doctors who treated Jay. He had a fever and cough and one thing was clear – he needed 100 percent oxygen. Entering the hospital was the last memory Jay would have for the next three weeks.

The Emergency Department (ED) team moved swiftly to provide the care Jay so urgently needed. He was intubated and placed in the ED Intensive Care Unit on life support before being admitted to Intensive Care that night. Medicine was administered to keep his blood pressure up – a tactic that was employed for days after his arrival.

“He was extremely ill,” says Dr. Panico, adding, “As ill as a person gets from this disease.”

From there, several teams collaborated to treat Jay. Critical care staff, nurses, respiratory therapists and PCAs, to name a few, all worked tirelessly to help Jay’s body fight the virus. They worked on proning Jay, moving his body from resting on the back to stomach, to better facilitate oxygen into his bloodstream.

Jay made it through the next few days, but on March 30 he was gravely ill and a decision was made. Jay would be medically paralyzed to maintain the oxygen levels in his body. His muscles would receive no oxygen at all. Around this time, Jay’s wife received a call from Palliative Care, in anticipation of what could be a worst case scenario.

All the while, the hardworking staff at Hartford Hospital never gave up.

“We were all worried that he wouldn’t make it through this,” said Dr. Panico. “But we continued to prone him, delivering the skills we’ve developed over the course of years, applying our critical care knowledge and state-of-the-art care.”

Several days later, Jay started to emerge from a gravely ill state, to marked improvement that left his providers in awe.

“Jay was one of the sickest patients I’ve ever seen, as sick as sick can get,” shared Panico. “I have known Jay for five weeks, and he has completely transformed the way I think of critical care.”

Jay was successfully extubated on April 10, a day that brought tears of joy to the team. Dr. Panico recalls there being a certain fear that day.

“He wasn’t moving at all,” she said. “We didn’t know if he was going to be able to move. He had been paralyzed for a long time. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to give him his life back.”

A few days went by and Jay started to wake up and began to move, giving the team the confidence and boost to start thinking about the next steps in Jay’s recovery.

The next step for Jay took him to Gaylord Specialty Hospital in Wallingford, where he would continue rehabilitation under the care of Dr. Panico, who also serves as the Medical Director at the facility. Jay was the first recovering COVID-19 patient to be sent to Gaylord, and there he embarked on a road to recovery that has been nothing less than inspiring to those around him.

During his recovery at Gaylord, Jay was motivated by an personal motto.

“One of the inner statements that I live by,” he said, “is that determination is the key to success and that’s been with me for years and years. I got here and didn’t know what to expect. All I wanted to do is to go home to my wife and daughter.

“I know I had to fight through this and get my body back, so I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ The team here has been absolutely amazing. They push you and push you and push you, and I said, ‘Give me more.’”

One of the people pushing Jay was Occupational Therapist Katie Zimmerli, who remembers the day she met Jay.

“He was so weak he nearly couldn’t sit up in his wheelchair,” she said. “It took two people to get him out of bed and he didn’t have the trunk control to sit up in his wheelchair.”

In the days that followed, Jay conquered his extreme fatigue, and by the third day he was ready to attempt standing up. What happened next was nothing short of amazing to Katie.

“We got him to the parallel bars,” she said, “and he didn’t want to just stand up, he wanted to take steps. He took a couple of steps and from that point on, he kept progressing so fast that I could barely keep up with him!”

As he prepares to head home and reunite with his wife and daughter, Jay is grateful for the care he received, saying, “I don’t know how to thank everyone, from the ER to the ICU to stepdown, everyone involved in my care – I thank you so much for basically saving my life. You never gave up and I appreciate that.”

It’s unlikely that Dr. Panico will ever forget Jay and the impact he made on the medical staff at both Hartford Hospital and Gaylord. “His recovery has been absolutely remarkable and taught all of us that people can recover from this,” she said.

And to Jay, she says, “You have changed the game for all of us, and given us hope.”

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