COVID Survivor Gets Shot From Doc Who Helped Save Him

LIBERTYVILLE, IL — Nearly a year after her emotional Facebook post about fighting to keep a patient alive went viral, getting shared nearly 200,000 times, an Advocate Condell Medical Center doctor gave that same patient his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Halleh Akbarnia met Michael Catania of Green Oaks when he was admitted to the emergency room at Advocate Condell Center at the start of the pandemic last March. She visited him every day in the hospital's COVID-19 intensive care unit. As he fought for his life, Catania had to be intubated and resuscitated several times.

Fifteen days later, he was discharged. Since then, Akbarnia and Catania have stayed in touch, according to a news release from Advocate Aurora Health.

And when Catania recently received an invitation to get his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, he thought of Akbarnia.

“I asked Dr. Akbarnia if she would give me the second shot and if that was possible because I wanted us to share that as a closure on the whole event,” Catania said. “We started the journey together, we’re ending the journey together, and I wanted that to be a part of what we both experienced.”

Akbarnia, an emergency room physician for 20 years, said Catania's story resonated with her more than that of any other patient she treated in her career.

Last week, she gave Catania his second shot at Condell Medical Center.

“This means everything,” Akbarnia said. “It was almost like I was hoping he was going to ask me to do this. To me, working this side of giving vaccine is about the biggest therapy that I could have. Giving him his shot was the ultimate.”

One Of Condell's First COVID-19 Patients: Doctors Deal With New Virus

Akbarnia met Catania on her first "real" pandemic shift in March last year at Condell. Since he was among their first patients showing serious symptoms, the emergency room doctors noted his low oxygen levels and X-rays showing what they "had been preparing for."

"And he was the nicest man I had met in a long time," Akbarnia wrote in a post on Facebook in early April, which ended up being shared more than 173,000 times. "Gasping for breath, he kept asking if we needed anything, and that it would all be okay. He told us he was a teacher but he was learning so much from us, and how much he respected what we were doing."

But behind the scenes, the emergency doctors were in uncharted territory. They had many tough decisions that day, such as how long to let Catania work through his low oxygen levels on his own before they needed to intubate him.

"His levels kept falling and despite our best efforts it was time to put him on a ventilator. He told me he didn't feel great about this," Akbarnia wrote.

"'[B]ut doc, I trust you and am putting myself in your hands,'" Catania told Akbarnia.

Akbarnia said an uneasy feeling in her stomach grew in that moment, but his "steady teacher's voice" kept her grounded.

"I saw his eyes looking at me, seeing the kindness in them, even as we pushed the medications to put him to sleep," she wrote in her viral Facebook post.

The intubation itself was very difficult.

"He nearly left us a few times in the first minutes, but he kept coming back," Akbarnia wrote. "We fought hard to keep him with us. The patience and the strength of my team that day, truly remarkable."

Catania was then transferred to the ICU at Condell for further treatment.

"And then for the next twelve days, I waited and watched his progress, knowing the statistics and how sick he was when he got to us," Akbarnia said.

After Catania was taken off his ventilator, Akbarnia went to visit him. He'd been in the COVID-19 unit where nobody could visit. His wife had been at home in isolation for 14 days.

"My heart broke thinking about how that must have been for him," she wrote. "I cautiously went into the room, donned in my PPE, and when he saw me, he stopped for a second. A moment of recognition."

She told him that she was the last person he saw in the ER.

"You told me you trusted us to get you to this side. It looks like you did fine," she said to him.

He started to cry and told her that he remembered her eyes.

"And I started to cry," Akbarnia wrote in her emotional Facebook post. "I sat down and we talked. I told him that while he is here, we are family."

That sentiment stuck with Catania. To this day, he considers Dr. Akbarnia as close to him as family. And he credits her and the other doctors who treated him in Advocate Condell’s emergency department and ICU with saving his life.

After treating him, Akbarnia said he'd always have a place in her heart. And he was also an inspiration to her early on in the pandemic.

"And whether he knows it or not, he will be my silent warrior and guide as I take care of every patient. COVID or not," she wrote. "He will fuel me until the day I hang up my stethoscope."