'I Somehow Survived This Insidious Virus': Beloved Local Teacher

SOUTH JAMESPORT, NY — Georgette Keller, a beloved local teacher in the Riverhead school district, is a woman of deep faith, and Easter has always held special meaning. But this year, Keller said she feels she experienced her own “resurrection,” as she emerged from her battle with the new coronavirus — and returned home just in time for the holiday.

Keller, a K through 4 literacy specialist at Roanoke Avenue Elementary School, said this year, Easter held new meaning. “While we were not able to carry out our usual Lenten observances due to COVID-19, we did deeply experience fear, sickness and the absolute hand of God,” she wrote on Facebook. “I contracted and somehow survived this insidious virus.”

The experience, she said, included two weeks of fevers spiking to almost 104 degrees, fatigue, shortness of breath and coughing, spending time in isolation, and loneliness. She had two trips to the hospital, “the second with the dry quiet pneumonia bad enough that I was required to share my intentions for a DNR — or do not resuscitate directive — induced coma, and use of a ventilator.”

Luckily, Keller said, medical professionals decided that Plaquenil therapy just might work, “and with oxygen it did — but not before a few more days of dangling on the edge. As Holy Week began, my healing did, too. While I missed my precious granddaughter Maeve’s third birthday, I did not miss Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday or Easter. “

“I feel like an army of angels surrounded me and Jesus himself carried me”

And the sheer depth of meaning conveyed by those days was not lost, she said.

“I feel like an army of angels surrounded me and Jesus himself carried me when I felt I could not do the next thing required,” Keller said.

Describing her fight with the virus, Keller described what she remembered most: “First, the fever. It just seems to never end. That has its own deleterious effect. And then it steals your ability to smell, or taste food. This means you are no longer getting adequate nutrition.”

Then, she said, the virus “goes after your lungs. But it’s not like most viruses that start with swelling of mucous membranes and lots of mucus. It agains fools you with a dry cough — and a pneumonia that can’t be detected with a stethoscope.”

So far, Keller has had three chest X-rays — the first two were relatively the same on March 26 and March 31, showing 95 percent of her lungs as “healthy and dark gray, with the very bottom of one lung as lighter. Then the second showed both at the bottom lighter, which indicated pneumonia. All the while with fevers raging as high as 103.9 degrees — relentless. I saw my doctor twice. In the parking lot and transported in by wheelchair because I was so weak. I was on antibiotics twice. I did everything right and carefully.”

But despite all care taken, on April 3, after 11 days of fever and fighting to to get enough hydration and nutrition, Keller said her blood pressure was only 80/40, her oxygen saturation level was only 76 percent, and her doctor called an ambulance to bring her to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead.

“He said, ‘If you were my mom, I’d want you to go back to the ER,'” she said.

Keller had already been to the ER on March 31; she was transported there by ambulance, fearing she was having a heart attack. “I had chest pains but it was my body’s response to not breathing deeply enough. A few hours on oxygen in the ER and I was feeling much better and my pneumonia hadn’t worsened so they sent me home.”

On her second visit to the ER, when it was clear how much Keller had declined from Tuesday to Friday, she was admitted immediately. Her chest X-ray now showed complete pneumonia; the X ray was “all light gray and white. My lungs couldn’t get enough oxygen and even with it, my OSATs would only climb to the mid 80s. The decision was made to immediately start with Plaquenil —and set up all my medical advances directives. That was the beginning of the scary part of this illness.”

What followed was a dark three days of fever, borderline dehydration, medication, uncontrollable vomiting, and diarrhea, she said.

“I was advised by my cousin and his son who are doctors, telling me to lay prone as often as possible in combination with the Plaquenil,” she said.

Finally, after 14 days, the fever broke,” she said. “I was then better able to be hydrated, and even though I still could not smell or taste food, begin eating a little more. Three more days of healing and I had acceptable oxygen levels and could come home just in time for the Easter Tridiuum.”

And what an Easter holiday it was, for Keller and her family, including her husband Robert, her daughters Nina and Grace, and her granddaughter Maeve.

“The resurrection had a deeper meaning as a result,” Keller said. “I definitely identified with the three-day descent into hell, alone and afraid, choosing to pray, have faith and keep moving forward with the next right choice. I felt disconnected from the world.”

Hospital staff, she said, would come into her room, completely covered from head to toe to protect themselves while caring for her.

“I am eternally grateful for their corporal works of mercy,” she said. “Their garb made them unidentifiable and almost surreal clouded by fever and delusional illness.”

During the ordeal, Keller said she found herself incredulous to find herself battling the virus.

“I really had thoughts of, ‘This is it? I am here alone, and checking out? No Bobby, the love of my life for 31 years? No children? I missed Maeve’s third birthday. And I was just leaving quietly?”

But no one who knows Keller, knows of her fierce dedication to her community and to her students, would doubt what happened next.

“Then my defiance rose up, and I prayed. I begged God to deliver me home back to all I held dear and holy because He gave them to me — and I treasure life.”

Keller is thankful that she never needed a ventilator. “I was at the edge, but the Plaquenil stopped the pneumonia in its tracks, even with the fever,” she said.

Today, she said, she had and still has side effects from the medication — headaches and an upset stomach. “But they gave me more meds to control the side effects —and my hair started coming out in fistfuls,” she said. “Thankfully that stopped when I finished taking the med.”

One of the best moments, she said, was when her sense of smell returned, on Easter Sunday, and she could smell lamb roasting in the oven.

During her whole coronavirus fight, Keller kept breathing in as deeply as she could.

“I am on our mindfulness team at Roanoke Avenue School, and I teach the kids to ‘smell the flower, blow the dry leaves,'” she said. “Mindful breathing helped me to feel balanced as I was walking out of the ring of fire.”

Now home, Keller said she is right back at work, trying to catch up with online teaching and her students. “My kids need me to encourage them, keep them reading and learning new words,” she said. “I know they need to see me and hear my voice. So that’s my next mission.”

One of the kids’ favorite things at Roanoke is when she reads aloud to them, so Keller said she is hoping to video a book and post it to the PTO page, “to remind them that we have so much to be thankful for, even though we are apart.”

During the days of coronavirus, Keller said she misses her church. Saint Isidore R.C. Church in Riverhead, she said, “is a central part of my weekly life. I am hoping I can go and sit and pray and light a candle of thanks soon.”

Emerging from the other side of coronavirus, Keller said she is making baby blankets for anyone she knows who is having a baby. “I made one last week after I came home, and now I’m making another one. I made one just before getting sick. Honoring a new life with prayer, good wishes and hope for a life well-lived is my way of thanking God for each new life,” she said.

Most of all, Keller is rejoicing at being home with her family and her dogs. “I’m a hopeless romantic. I lost my mom at such a young age that I considered it my mission to be the best version of ‘mommy’ that I could be, and I used Mary as my example. And my grandmothers, who always made me feel like I was such a gift from God.”

Her own children follow in her path: Her daughter Nina rescued her grandparents’ love letters after Hurricane Sandy.

Today, Keller said, there are moments to cherish: Grace is graduating from St Joseph’s with a degree in chemistry. And Nina? Saving the letters from the storm was a glimpse into her future: Today, she is just finishing her first year at Pratt for her masters in library and information science and historical archive work, Keller said.

As for Keller, she plans to donate her plasma, to help others.

After her terrifying experience, Keller chooses to focus on hope.

“It is spring. Hope is its greatest attribute. I have my own hope renewer every time I see a new yellow forsythia, or purple lilac begin to bloom. The signs of God’s covenant of the Easter promise and gift are everywhere, if you’re willing to believe and see,” she said.

Keller thanked friends and family for their prayers and good wishes: “If I have not thanked you personally, please forgive me. I am still healing. I still get tired, and I am still giving profound thanks for my God-given life.”

She is sharing her story, Keller said, to encourage others to donate plasma.

And, she wants to help others who think talk of coronavirus is “a hoax. To to understand, and maybe brings a sense of belonging for someone who feels isolated, and helps others who have lost loved ones to know there are those who do survive and and inspire them to find the silver lining, too. There almost always is one, just maybe a little hard to locate at first.”

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