On Sunday, April 12, Shanderick (Shammy) Dorsey, of Lexington, was taken to the emergency department at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center after coughing up large amounts of blood. Dorsey and his mother, Yateria Thomas, soon learned that Shammy not only had COVID-19, but at the age of 18, had also experienced a heart attack and pneumonia due to the virus. Shammy would spend the next 95 days in both the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) and the Medical ICU (MICU) at Wake Forest Baptist, where his condition and prognosis slowly improved. He was discharged on Friday, July 17.
“Never would I have imagined that my son would contract coronavirus. Never. I didn’t really even believe it at first,” Thomas said. “He did everything right – he had been quarantined for weeks due to his asthma. We later learned that I am the one who had brought the virus home from work and gave to him. I was asymptomatic; I had no symptoms at all and quit my job after learning where this came from.”
“Dorsey really became part of our ICU family,” said Ben Boger, a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at Wake Forest Baptist. “We went through so many emotions with his family – he’d have days of improvement and then he’d have days of setbacks. I remember putting my hand on his chest a few times and telling him, ‘You got this man.’ At times, our staff was all he had, due to the limited visitor restrictions, and we really rallied behind him. When I learned his 19th birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted to do something special for him. I got a large birthday banner, streamers, balloons shaped like ‘19’; and was excited to change the view of his room for him on his special day.”
Thomas credits the staff from the MICU and the CVICU for her son still being here. She also credits her faith and the power of prayer for her son’s recovery – she would often ask the physicians and staff to pray over Dorsey. “God placed the right care team in my baby’s world and he received the best care out there. They kept me informed every step of the way and if I could, I would give them the world, because they saved my world, my son,” Thomas said.
Thomas credits the staff from the MICU and the CVICU for her son still being here. She also credits her faith and the power of prayer for her son’s recovery – she would often ask the physicians and staff to pray over Dorsey. “God placed the right care team in my baby’s world and he received the best care out there. They kept me informed every step of the way and if I could, I would give them the world, because they saved my world, my son,” Thomas said.
Photo credit: Wake Forest Baptist Health
Media contact: Eryn Johnson, eryjohns@wakehealth.edu, 336-905-1442.