ROYAL OAK, Mich. – When her son was diagnosed with COVID-19 two months ago, Betty Moore didn’t know she’d see him alive again. But today he’s going home and its a reunion worth waiting for.
Betty Moore has waited long enough. She's waited 54 days. That's how long her son Johnzell has been at Beaumont hospital in Royal Oak after contracting COVID-19.
“So very, very good I'm just I'm just so excited. I’m holding back the tears. I just want to, I just want to see him again,” Moore said waiting outside the south entrance for her oldest son, 39, to be discharged. “Yes, I was very scared. I work myself at Henry Ford Home Healthcare and that was a trying time for me.”
Johnzell, Betty said, likely caught the coronavirus during one of his jobs as a technician at two local behavioral hospitals and a youth correctional facility. She thinks it was after a one-on-on one meeting with a young man at one of those jobs.
Betty Moore has been through enough. A license practicing nurse herself, she had to keep going to work. Over the course of nearly 2 months, she was unable to see her son in the hospital, even after he was placed on a ventilator twice, Not after his heart stopped and not after his kidneys failed. Not even when they said he wouldn’t survive.
“They really didn't think he was going to live. And I said, ‘You mean my son has to die before I can come up there?’ And they said, ‘Yes’.”
Johnzell is a father of six and his family was waiting for him back at the house. But betty? She wasn’t going to wait any than she had to. So she drove through the rain, she skipped breakfast, just to wait. With each passing minute was asked to wait just a little more.
As her son is wheeled out of the door holding a thin black cane that looks like it would hardly support his large frame, she exclaimed, “My son! That's my son!”
A mask on his face covering an obvious smile and unkempt beard, Johnzell says the first thing he is going to do when he gets home is take a shower, a hot shower.
“I appreciate everything. ICU 6th floor. 7 central. They took me from walking to not walking,” Johnzell said giving the nurse who wheeled him out a fist bump. “I just feel so blessed.”
As her son thanks his care takers, Betty, ever the mother, is taking care of him. Taking his things to the car and reaching out a hand when he says he wants to stand up. As all of her, standing at about 5-foot-5, could help all of his 6-feet-3-inches if he were to fall. But she was a steadying force nonetheless.
“I walked in here. I'm gonna walk out,” Johnzell said as he made his way to the waiting car.
There’s a saying about a mothers love knowing no bounds and when it counts, the same seems to be true for a mother’s patience.
Anyone who believes they might have coronavirus should follow the CDC guidelines. Michigan.gov has a list of resources available to those concerned about COVID-19.
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