LONG BEACH, Calif. — As a veteran ICU nurse whose job is to care for the most critically ill patients at her hospital in Long Beach, California, Merlin Pambuan was well aware of the deadly ravages COVID-19 can inflict on the human body.
Last spring in a tragic role reversal, Pambuan became one of those patients — admitted to the intensive care unit of St. Mary Medical Center, her workplace for the past 40 years, where she was rendered unconscious by paralysis-inducing sedation and placed on a ventilator to breathe. A feeding tube was later added.
She came close to death on several occasions, her doctors later revealed. So dire was her condition at one point that end-of-…
Keep on reading: ‘My second life’: California nurse walks out of hospital after eight-month COVID-19 ordeal