It’s been a long and difficult winter for Cindi Sweedler of Williams.

As a school nurse, she’s coached and instructed others how to remain safe during the pandemic, has helped implement mitigation measures and has observed all of the protocols put forth by health officials. But despite all of her best efforts, she contracted the coronavirus and has spent the better part of three months striving to recover.

Sweedler was a nurse at Northeast Hamilton Schools and when the district merged with Webster City Schools, Sweedler joined Lea Ahrens to serve as school nurses for the district. Sweedler works with the Northeast Elementary center and also provides services to Stratford Schools.

Before classes started last August, Ahrens and Sweedler worked with the school administration to help put in place all of the pandemic mitigation practices. Any COVID cases that arose would be funneled through the school nurses to track positive cases, determine quarantines and contact trace students and staff.

“Then in November we had so many staff members and students out with COVID. That’s when we moved to two weeks of remote learning,” she said.

It was about that time that Sweedler started experiencing what she thought were sinus issues. Her doctor reated her with prescription sinus medication for about two weeks.

“But I really just didn’t feel well,” she said.

When she took her husband to the hospital for a surgical procedure, she noticed that she was out of breath as she walked him into the facility.

“I had a COVID test, but it came back negative,” she said. “I just tried to grin and bear it and go to work.”

But the next day, Sweedler said “it was like someone flipped a switch.” She became so winded she didn’t think she could get dressed.

“I never lost taste or smell or had a fever,” she said. “It was just this breathlessness and I was tired.” She assumed the fatigue was due to the sinus condition and the medication she was taking.

By that Monday morning, she knew she needed to seek help. Her breathing had become extremely labored. Her daughter took Sweedler to a respiratory clinic in Ames.

“Normally, your oxygen levels in a healthy person are 95 to 100. When they tested me — and they retested me about three times — mine was at 67. They kind of looked at me like ‘How did you walk in here,'” she said, noting that trip to the clinic from the car involved small slow steps and a rest stop in the lobby.

She was taken by ambulance to Mary Greeley Medical Center’s emergency room. She was tested for COVID-19 and the test still came back negative. But when she was tested a second time, the results were positive.

She was immediately admitted to the hospital. As her daughter was leaving the hospital, Sweedler said she wondered if this was a last farewell for them.

“It may be because I’m a nurse, but as a human being, it was like saying goodbye and will I ever see you again, because I knew I was critical.”

Sweedler said she was surprised that she didn’t end up in the intensive care unit and even heard the nurses saying the same thing. She was put on forced air at the highest level possible. She surmised forced air helped to bring up her oxygen levels enough that the ICU was not needed.

But her lab tests showed that she was indeed in serious condition.

She later learned her kidneys had started to shut down, her heart was shown to be under stress and blood clots were also a concern.

“There’s a lab test that you take to see if blood clots will be an issue, and that can be very serious. The levels should be less than 1. Mine was off the scales at 47. They never found any blood clots, but they treated me for them in the hospital,” she said.

Isolation

The hospital stay meant isolation on the COVID floor. No-one really came into the room unless they were fully covered in personal protective equipment.

“You really do feel isolated,” she said.

She entered the hospital on the same day that the students at the Northeast Hamilton Elementary returned to in-person classes. She spent a total of two weeks in the hospital, staying through Christmas, and was released at the end of the month.

She spent the next month at her daughter, Elizabeth’s house, which was all on one level. Back home, Sweedler would have had to climb the stairs to her bedroom and bathroom.

“I was sent home with oxygen because of my levels. I still use it yet today,” she said.

She said she’s beginning to see small, incremental improvements in her health. This week, her oxygen levels seem to be improving.

“I still will need the oxygen and have to have it at night,” she said.

The brain fog has been another condition she’s battled in her recovery — that feeling that her thinking was fuzzy and out of focus. An avid reader, Sweedler said she’s worked hard to cut through the brain fog and focus on reading material. Lengthy Zoom meetings can also be a challenge, she said.

Sweedler is what they call a long-hauler, one of a portion of COVID-19 patients who will experience prolonged symptoms one, two or even three months after they were infected.

“The disease is so new and they really don’t know what’s going to happen. People may have no symptoms and six months later, suddenly one appears,” she said. “And then you have someone like me who is over 3 months into this and still not perking. I can feel like I have all the energy in the world, but the lungs will shut you down.”

Some days are better than others, and simple tasks take great effort some days. Vacuum cleaning a room may cause her to have shortness of breath.

Her doctors are limiting her to a couple days of work each week, she said. They don’t want her to overtax her lungs, and she’s trying to be careful to not catch any other viruses that may be circulating.

“The school has been fabulous in their support,” she said. “Lea Ahrens has done a terrific job covering all of the buildings in the district while I’ve been out.”

Always cautious

Sweedler said from the beginning, she was always cautious and observed the recommended CDC mitigation guidelines.

“I didn’t do grocery shopping, I didn’t go anywhere,” she said. At school, the classrooms were sanitized each night, everyone was in a mask and a shield and they used hand sanitizer.

Even with all of those precautions, she still managed to contract the virus.

“The kids at school said it was ‘hammer-time.’ ‘You got hammered, Nurse Cindi,'” she said.

Other members of her family also had COVID. Her daughter had an asymptomatic case in November, Sweedler’s husband Wes had a positive antigen test.

“So at some point he had COVID, but never tested positive,” she said.

Respect

Sweedler says she understands that people are getting tired of all the pandemic guidelines. It’s been a year of masks and no contact, but she said that it all boils down respecting others.

“If you have respect for other people, the handwashing and masks are still so paramount to eradicating this disease and going back to some kind of normal,” she said.

“Out of respect for loved ones, neighbors and even people you may not know, wear the mask. The masks and the handwashing have proven to be effective,” she said.

The nurse said she’s seeing signs of hope.

“We thought after Christmas, we might see the numbers (of positive cases) rise. The numbers are going down, I think people have been really mindful of what they are doing,” she said. And as vaccine clinics continue and more and more people receive their shots, Sweedler said she’s looking forward to being with family again.

“My dad lives in an assisted living facility and my father-in-law is in a nursing home. Since both of them are two-weeks post vaccine, I can now go see them,” she said.

Her father visited her last weekend and they enjoyed a meal together for the first time in over a year.

“That human contact, being with family, is what I’m most hopeful for,” she said.

“And I hope that people remember what they gained during the pandemic. Material things, going places and being so busy isn’t necessarily as important as spending quality time with family,” she said. “That’s what really matters.”

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