Nikola (32) spent 52 days on the ventilator: He was healthy, and then huge fight against Covid began

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Nikola Vukcevic from Banja Luka came back to life and defeated coronavirus. For 52 days, a ventilator and an ECMO device breathed instead of him. Thanks to the doctors at the University Clinical Center of the Serb Republic (RS) in Banja Luka fighting like lions, he won the most important battle.

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The 32-year-old lost 25 kilograms in less than two months. He feels well today.

At the beginning of his conversation with a RTRS reporter, he stressed that he can only talk about the period of the treatment that he remembers. He felt the first symptoms of Covid on October 11, and within a few days, this energetic young man from Banja Luka was undergoing treatment at the University Clinical Center of the RS, in Intensive Care Clinic.

"That day started normally, like any other. I went to work and felt cold on two occasions, and thought that was because it was cold in the office. I didn't even suspect it was Covid," says Nikola.

"The body began to burn"

By evening, he was getting worse and worse.

"I came home and played with the baby. I felt really ill in a moment and had to go to bed right away. My body then began to burn. I ran a fever of over 40 degrees, I was in a semi-conscious state," says Nikola.

He immediately reported to the Clinical Center, where he was admitted to the Infectious Diseases Clinic.

"I had a strong cough, they had to put me on oxygen. I was hospitalized on a Friday, by Monday they managed to bring down that temperature, but the cough was getting stronger. I couldn't even talk, I felt I was suffocating," he recalls.

He was transferred to the Intensive Care Clinic the next day.

"They kept me on oxygen there for seven days. I wore the (oxygen) mask. They had to intubate me on Monday, but that didn't help either. The lungs could no longer perform their function and they connected me to an ECMO. From that point on, I remember nothing, I wasn't conscious," says Nikola.

The young man says that he would have died if it were not for that device, because his lungs had failed.

"I was in a coma for 10, 11 days. I was not aware of everything that was happening even when I woke up. They often induced sleep so that I could recover," says the young man.

The doctors were not giving Nikola's family any false hopes. The chances of him surviving were only two percent.

"They told them honestly that the chances are very small and that they expect the moment when I will finish 'my story'. It was hard for them. I was in a coma, and they were waiting for the news," says Nikola.

He says that the line on the display went flat ten times, to finally jump up again. That gave the doctors hope.

He also had to receive blood transfusions

During the treatment, he also needed regular blood transfusions, so an appeal was sent to everyone who had the rare blood group A negative to help Nikola. Thousands of blood donors from all over the RS responded.

"I received four doses of blood and I thank everyone who responded to that call and urged others to help me," said Vukcevic.

The recovery process was very long. During the first few days, he couldn't even sit on his own. The muscles had atrophied. Physical therapists and medical workers helped him sit up first and then get up.

"They got me to stand up more than I did. I couldn't feel my legs. They held me, I would be able to stand up for about ten seconds, then they would lower me down again," he says.

He was admitted to the hospital when his daughter was nine months old and when he came out, she was already 11 months old.

"I thought about that lost period all the time. I just wanted to go back to my family, friends. To return to where I left off," says Nikola.

When he came home, his loved ones could not recognize him. He had lost 25 kilograms.

"They were happy that I was alive, but their eyes were full of tears because they had to see me like that... I had lost weight, I was pale, I had difficulty walking. During the first few days, I comforted them, that I was feeling better. I explained to them that I had been much worse than I seemed then," says Nikola.

Vukcevic says that he would not want anyone to go through what he went through.

"I survived, but many did not. I watched people die. That will stay etched in my memory for the rest of my life. The whole story that went with coronavirus, that the elderly were dying, those who had other diseases... here I was, young and I was not sick before, yet I almost died," says this young man.

He adds that he watched people younger than himself fail to overcome this scourge.

(Telegraf.rs)