- A comatose nurse dreamed five angels were calling to
her from a mountaintop.
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- A dying patient fantasized he would bite through his
throat tube, strangle his caregivers, and escape.
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- A man whose older brother lay near-death smoked cigars
and sweated out the disease at home.
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- Each person contracted Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
this year. While 44 people in Toronto died of SARS, these are among the
331 who lived.
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- Why they survived is of great importance to scientists,
because SARS could be back. Doctors want to know if there is a way to protect
people, and better ways to treat the virus. Some survivors are being studied.
Their blood is examined. Their bodies poked and prodded.
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- "They tell me I am the sickest person to have lived,"
says Vadim Bychutsky.
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- Vadim lost three family members. He is part of a medical
study of survivors. He goes for regular tests to North York General Hospital,
the place where he was infected.
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- "They hope to find something in my blood to explain
why I lived."
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- As part of the Star's ongoing investigation, here are
three tales from the living. SARS affected each one differently.
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- Vadim Bychutsky
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- Vadim was infected in early May. He and other family
members were visiting Berta, 90, his grandmother, at North York General.
She was recovering from a hip operation. SARS was over, politicians were
saying.
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- "Mel Lastman told us it was safe," recalls
Vadim, 42. He credits his powerful physiology and focused mental attitude
for his survival.
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- Before SARS, the Centennial College teacher did 1,000
push-ups and ran 20 kilometres a week. He was healthy - no diabetes or
other problems to weaken his body. Back in the former Soviet Union he completed
a stint in an army special forces unit.
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- When he, his mother and uncle realized they were infected,
they returned to the North York hospital on May 23. Doctors had just realized
that SARS 2 was upon them. Doctors said they had only two beds. Vadim went
home, stayed clear of his wife and five children, and packed a bag. A relative
was away; Vadim quarantined himself in the empty home. A slight fever was
building.
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- In the first few days, the normally gentle Vadim became
wildly aggressive. A meter reader arrived. Through the closed door, Vadim
screamed that he would kill the man. Not with SARS. With his hands.
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- "It was strange. I felt immediate danger. I thought
he was sent there to kill me. I was not in my right mind."
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- The gas company man went away.
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- Vadim's breathing grew laboured. He called 911.
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- An ambulance took him to Humber River Regional Hospital.
For several days, he recalls lying in a room, virtually unattended. He
got angrier. "I was screaming at nurses and doctors." In the
Soviet Army, Vadim says he was taught to never leave somebody behind in
the woods.
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- "I was the guy left behind in the woods."
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- His wife Rachel convinced North York General to take
him in. The hospital was better equipped, they decided. By this time, his
mother was dead; his uncle just barely surviving. Vadim called his wife
and said he would probably not make it.
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- "The doctors told me I would not walk away from
this place."
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- Vadim's vital signs were failing. He wasn't getting enough
oxygen.
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- Doctors intubated him, forcing a tube down his throat
to help his lungs breathe. Doctors struggled with the powerful man. He
was sedated. He struggled more. They sedated him more.
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- For two weeks he was unconscious. A variety of drugs
were tried. Though heavily drugged, doctors noticed his eyeballs continually
rolling under his closed lids.
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- In an uneasy dream-world, Vadim had one continual fantasy.
"I would chew through the tube, rip off my restraints, strangle the
nurse and doctor and walk out."
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- Two weeks passed. In the middle of June, the room swam
into focus. Vadim looked up at a sea of eyes. Masks and surgical caps covered
the faces of the nurses and doctors crowded around.
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- A doctor shook his head in surprise. "You did great!"
The doctors told him he survived because, though sedated, he was constantly
fighting.
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- "You never checked out," the doctor told him.
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- Vadim lost 20 pounds. Three months later, he's running
and doing pushups, but not as much as before. He aims to make a full recovery.
That's why doctors are studying him. His uncle, mother and grandmother
all had health problems, and were older, factors that made the SARS virus
lethal to their bodies.
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- "It would be nice if they discovered something that
would help others. It would mean that my mother and uncle did not die in
vain," says Vadim, who has returned to his former gentle self. Vadim
has returned to teaching. He, his wife, and five children are getting on
with their lives, conscious of the terrible loss - two generations wiped
out - that SARS wreaked.
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- `Five angels looked down at me from the mountaintop.
They told me to wake up.'
- Juji Menez, SARS survivor
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- Hugh Dougherty
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- Water tasted like slime. He had a headache and fever.
The retired plant worker, an affable man who loved playing music in jam
sessions with friends, had SARS.
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- His older brother Jim had picked up the disease at Scarborough
Grace Hospital on March 7, the night the outbreak began. Hugh, and Jim's
wife, Flo, stayed close to Jim. He was in and out of Grace, then transferred
to York Central on March 16. At his bedside at York, Hugh's legs turned
watery. He steadied himself.
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- "It was like somebody was standing on my shoulder."
His son Michael, 47, drove him home. They drove down the Don Valley Parkway
and pulled up to the pleasant bungalow Hugh, 73, shares with his son.
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- "I said to Michael, `Son, I've got to go to bed.
I don't want anything to eat either.'"
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- Michael got sick, too. Father and son sweated out the
disease together. Hugh had no wind. "I tell you, it felt like I had
marched 75 miles."
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- It's not clear if Toronto Public Health was aware of
the Doughertys' case. Officials there have been asked twice by the Star
to explain what happened, but say patient-confidentiality rules prevent
them from answering. Hospitals will also not discuss the case.
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- Jim, though infected in Grace ER on March 7, was not
discovered to be a SARS patient until March 27, two days before he died.
Dozens of people were infected as a result, and at least one person, in
addition to Jim, died. Flo was transferred to a retirement home, likely
spread the infection, and almost died. Meanwhile, Hugh and Michael stayed
at home, sick with SARS. Hugh says they were monitored by doctors at Sunnybrook
Hospital.
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- Hugh has little memory of the next three weeks. Water
had lost the crisp taste he enjoyed. The only thing he could stomach was
warm apple juice.
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- Smoking cigars helped. "When I was feeling really
punk, it would make me feel better."
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- At one point, he came to in his room. "It was the
strangest thing. I heard sirens, police cars, an ambulance. They seemed
to come all at once. My house seemed to be filled with people. I think
some doctors. Then they all went away."
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- Then Hugh and his son started getting better. Cold canned
fruit, ice cream, were his first bites.
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- Today, he's getting back to normal. Flo, Jim's widow,
is in a retirement home for a year. She recovered from SARS, but is not
healthy enough to live on her own in the couple's condominium.
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- When Jim and Hugh were kids, Hugh was the troublemaker
and Jim the "goody goody." He misses his big brother every day.
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- Juji Menez
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- For 12 years, the North York General nurse worked on
4West, the now-infamous ward where Toronto's second outbreak went undetected
for seven weeks.
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- Juji, 49, worked with one of her best friends, Nelia
Laroza. Both nurses were originally from the Philippines, both committed
to their jobs, both parents. Nelia died; Juji, who was equally sick, survived.
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- On May 23, when North York and public health realized
SARS was back, Juji and others were put into a work quarantine, meaning
they could work with full precautions (mask, glasses, gloves, gown). She
could not have contact with her family. Juji has a husband and two boys,
6 and 11.
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- Three days later, Juji had a slight temperature. She
was admitted to the hospital's SARS ward. A rapid, quite violent cough
developed.
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- "I was really, really coughing. I have asthma, which
made it worse. I could not breathe."
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- In her hospital bed, she panicked. She was suffocating.
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- Doctors realized she was in trouble. As they were doing
for Nelia, three rooms down the hall, they intubated Juji on June 3.
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- Doctors have told her they believed she would die.
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- Intubated, she was sedated and unconscious. The treatment
was silent, except for the sound of the respirator. Room after room of
white-sheeted patients, quietly trying to stay alive. Fellow nurses say
they came and read to her, recited prayers.
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- Juji had dreams, often painted with wild colours.
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- One dream: Her 6-year-old son suddenly appeared in her
room. "Mommy, I am so cold and bored," the boy said. Juji was
frantic.
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- She feared infecting him. She gestured wildly for him
to leave (a doctor told her later that, at one point, she raised an arm
in her bed and pointed at the door, as if to send someone away).
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- Another dream Juji recalls: "I was in a brook, in
a high mountain. Five angels looked down at me from the mountaintop. They
told me to wake up."
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- When she did, on June 17, and recounted the dream, her
family told her they were "my guardian angels." Doctors said
she was a "miracle." Near death, she suddenly turned around and
survived.
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- Her recovery was slow. Juji was depressed while in hospital.
Doctors have told her she has post-traumatic stress disorder. Juji is part
of a Health Canada study examining SARS survivors.
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- Nelia, 51, died on June 29. "I feel guilty, sometimes,
that I lived and she died," says Juji.
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- The colours from the dreams remain vivid. "I'm going
to paint them one day. There were such amazing colours. So beautiful."
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