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March 29, 2024

Returning to the Front Lines After Recovering from COVID-19

October 9, 2020

Even though COVID-19 made her feel “like I was dying here in my apartment,” home health aide Arcina Batista’s faith, her determination born of a strong mother, and her commitment to her Partners in Care clients all helped her get through the illness and return to work.

It wasn’t easy: Arcina had a high fever for weeks, lost a lot of weight, and felt thoroughly weak and exhausted—but she kept her focus on recovering. “I said to myself, I have to do it. Everything is possible when you put your mind to it,” she says.  Arcina’s 89-year-old mother, who lives a block away and communicated with her by video calls, supported her in the fight. “You are going to make it,” she told her daughter.

Arcina wanted to get better for her mother, her two daughters, her husband—and her clients, elderly New Yorkers who are often isolated and suffering. “My clients really need the help,” Arcina says, noting that they often wait for her with their apartment doors open. “They say, ‘I’m so glad you came to help me today.’ Being able to help is the most beautiful thing.”

Arcina is grateful for the support she received from Partners in Care during her struggle, including daily calls from her colleagues. “Their support made me feel important, that I’m part of a team,” she says.

Rosa Marcus, Associate Director of Certified Services, says her entire team was inspired by Arcina’s determination and commitment, “When Arcina was out, all she talked about was going back to work,” Rosa recalls. “She kept saying, ‘People need me, I need to take care of them.’”

From his hospital bed, physical therapist Billy Campbell also fought a devastating case of COVID-19—respiratory failure, pneumonia, a collapsed lung and a secondary infection—with the same determination he uses to motivate his PT clients on the road to recovery.

“The nurses were impressed that I was in bed doing exercises,” says Billy, a longtime physical therapist with VNSNY Home Care’s Manhattan Branch 3. After spiking a fever on his birthday, April 2, he went into quarantine and then was admitted to the hospital ten days later when his oxygen saturation plummeted. “I was making my roommates sit up on the edge of the bed,” Billy remembers. “We did breathing exercises together, and I was telling them the importance of standing up and sitting down a few times to keep yourself moving—as opposed to just sitting there dying.”

Billy, who was in excellent physical shape before the illness, would go on to lose about 50 pounds and 50 percent of his lung capacity over the course of his convalescence. “All the doctors tell me I shouldn’t be here,” he says.

Billy is here, thankfully, and he’s using his firsthand experience not only to put himself in his patients’ shoes, but also to develop protocols for improving recovery and outcomes. He notes that too many COVID patients are prescribed oxygen upon discharge from the hospital and not taught how to use it. So, he’s developing a program to help people better understand how to use the equipment and monitor their oxygen levels, as well as a post-COVID exercise program to enhance healing.

Billy is now back at work after a carefully monitored recovery that included “practice” walks through the city with his equipment to make sure he could cover his cases. As a physical therapist and a father, Billy knows the power of motivation in healing. “I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old at home who depend on me,” he says. “I have to be able to chase after them.”

Billy’s colleague and friend Phil Leon, a VNSNY Home Care nurse with Manhattan Branch 4, was also sidelined by COVID-19 during the virus’s spring peak. Phil first suspected he was sick when he had the urge to nap in the afternoon—something he never does. He and his wife, an elementary school nurse who also had symptoms, quarantined at home, sleeping with the windows open and a fan running despite the April chill, and relied on their teenage children to do the laundry and cooking.

Once the symptoms subsided, plus a few extra days for good measure, Phil was happy to get back to work—although he was “doubly cautious,” he says, wearing an N-95 respirator everywhere, washing his hands constantly, and following all prevention guidelines to the letter.

While he still battled fatigue well after he’d recovered, Phil considers himself lucky. He knows how much worse his friend Billy suffered, and he knows how colleagues like Arcina and others at VNSNY have bravely struggled throughout the pandemic. COVID-19 has taken a searing toll on hospital workers and others throughout the city as well. Phil, who has been a public health nurse for more than 20 years, lost an aunt and cousin to the virus, and he thinks about them every day. “When you know what other people have gone through, my problems don’t seem so big anymore,” he says. “After what they went through, am I going to complain about wearing a mask? You do what you have to do to get through, and you maintain a positive attitude.”

To read more VNSNY Heroes of 2020 articles, click here.