{"id":35776,"date":"2022-05-28T00:01:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-28T07:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=35776"},"modified":"2026-06-06T07:19:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:19:47","slug":"did-covid-kill-my-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/did-covid-kill-my-husband\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Covid Kill My Husband? Was He ‘Collateral Damage’ of the Pandemic?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"did<\/a>
The main entrance to the emergency room was boarded up during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. My husband had to enter through a small guarded entrance. I wasn’t allowed in at all. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Did Covid kill my husband?<\/p>\n

As of last week, Covid-19 had taken the lives of 1,000,000 Americans.<\/p>\n

Was Jon victim No. 1,000,001?<\/p>\n

No. Technically, Jon did not die of Covid. Not as far as anybody knows.<\/p>\n

But did the virus, the pandemic, the shut-down of services, and the general fear of infection that pervaded the world in general and our household in particular take my husband’s life?<\/p>\n

Was his death and the death of thousands — hundreds of thousands? — of other Americans collateral damage<\/a> of the Covid pandemic?<\/p>\n

Jon died of a pulmonary embolism on February 19, 2021. But I have to wonder, would he be alive today if it weren’t for the pandemic? Did Covid kill my husband?<\/p>\n

Weak and spacey<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Toward the end of January, 2021, Jon was not feeling well. He was weak and a little spacey. But instead of going to see his doctor — where a hands-on visit might have revealed that Jon’s heartbeat had gone wacko — Jon “saw” his doctor via a telephone conversation.<\/p>\n

Anemia was suspected. A blood test was ordered.<\/p>\n

Would an in-person visit have made a difference?<\/em><\/p>\n

Blood test results<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Days later, the blood test results came back negative. Rather than risk an office visit or more tests, Jon and his doctor decided on a wait-and-see approach.<\/p>\n

Would more tests\u00a0 — a simple EKG — have turned something up?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"did<\/a>
On January 31, Jon wasn’t feeling well, so he went for a drive-through Covid test. It was negative. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Irregular heartbeat<\/strong><\/h6>\n

A week or two later, Jon noticed that his heartbeat was irregular. When I took him to the ER, I wasn’t allowed in. Jon was diagnosed with atrial flutter and prescribed Diltiazem for the arrhythmia and Xarelto to prevent blood clots.<\/p>\n

What did Jon tell the ER docs? What did they say to him?\u00a0Would things have gone differently if I’d been in the ER to advocate for Jon?\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Doctor visit delayed<\/strong><\/h6>\n

A week or two later, on a Monday night, Jon’s heartbeat was suddenly all over the map.\u00a0 There was no pattern to the arrhythmia. Fast. Slow. Scrambled. I called the cardiologist. His receptionist said the doctor would see Jon on Thursday — three days hence. We made an appointment.<\/p>\n

How would things have gone if I’d put our Covid fears aside and taken Jon to the ER again that same night?<\/em><\/p>\n

‘Where am I?’<\/strong><\/h6>\n

On Wednesday, after dinner I was doing the dishes when I heard Jon call out, “Where am I?”<\/p>\n

I found him downstairs, his arms outstretched, feeling the wall. “Where am I?” he kept saying. I thought he was kidding.<\/p>\n

He wasn’t. He’d had a stroke.<\/p>\n

I called 911. The ambulance arrived. Out on the street, surrounded by medics and police, I put my arms around Jon and held him close.<\/p>\n

“Why are you doing that?” he said.<\/p>\n

“Because I won’t see you for a while.” I said. “They won’t let me into the hospital.” That was the last time I saw Jon alive.<\/p>\n

I called the ER, but the hospital doctors didn’t respond to my calls until the next morning.<\/p>\n

Would it have made a difference if I’d been in the hospital with Jon — so I could see that he was getting the emergency care he needed?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"covid<\/a>
Jon took good care of his health. Here, in November, 2020, as the final, nerve-wracking\u00a0 presidential election results came in, he decided he’d better check his blood pressure. It was fine. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The phone calls<\/strong><\/h6>\n

The stroke left Jon with a partial loss of vision in one eye. On Friday afternoon, the doctors phoned me to say they were prescribing physical and occupational therapy. He’d be in the hospital another two weeks.<\/p>\n

Just after 7:00 that evening,\u00a0 another doctor called to tell me that Jon had died. A sudden and unexpected pulmonary embolism had taken his life.<\/p>\n

At his bedside<\/strong><\/h6>\n

This time I was allowed into the hospital. I could be with Jon that evening. I could say good-bye.<\/p>\n

Covid did not get prevent small mercy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Did Covid kill my husband?<\/strong><\/h6>\n

I turn these thoughts over in my mind from time to time. But Jon is gone, and ruminating on the what-ifs won’t bring him back. Most days, I can put my nagging thoughts aside. Most days.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to embrace my husband on the street in front of our house before the ambulance took him away. That memory comforts me. So is the love letter I sent to Jon in the form of a blog post back in 2019. You can find it at, “Lucky Me. I Told Jon Newhall I Loved Him.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"did<\/a><\/p>\n

Covid-19 has killed 1,000,000 Americans. How many additional, collateral casualties were there? Was Jon one of them? Did Covid kill my husband?\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2602,2603,2556,34,2557,191,29],"class_list":["post-35776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-widowed","tag-arrhythmia","tag-covid-collateral-damage","tag-doctors","tag-dont-miss","tag-er","tag-grief","tag-jon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49258,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35776\/revisions\/49258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}