LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Demetrius Booker raised a fist in the air in a sign of victory as he was wheeled out of Baptist East Hospital on Friday after a three-month war with the coronavirus.
The happy and healthy 40-year old dad from La Grange, Kentucky, said he went from mowing his lawn to fighting for his life.
"It just feels so great not seeing four walls," he said. "It just feels so great."
Booker, a graphic designer at the University of Louisville, spent nearly 100 days in five different hospitals over the course of three months. It started July 18 with a trip to the Emergency Room at Baptist La Grange. From there, he was transferred to Baptist East Hospital in Louisville. Doctors decided he needed Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and sent him to University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington.
"Basically, what we were doing is inserting catheters that circulate his blood outside of his body through an oxygenation filter machine that gives him the oxygenation, cleans off the carbon dioxide and returns it back to his body," said Dr. Brandon Kellie, a pulmonologist at Baptist Health pulmonologist. "It's kind of like dialysis of the lungs."
Next, Booker went to a Kindred Healthcare facility to be weaned off a ventilator and then back to Baptist East in Louisville for physical therapy.
"Next thing you know, I remember waking up in September," Booker said.
By the time Booker left Baptist East on Friday, he had lost 40 pounds.
"He had to learn how to walk, how to move his hands, talk," Booker's sister, Latosha Bishop, said. "Anything you can imagine, he had to redo it all over again."
Booker's memory of the battle is foggy, but there's was one thing he could not forget.
Demetrius Booker, returns home after a 3-month battle with COVID-19.
"My daughter, my daughter!" he said, sobbing before loading into the car at the hospital. "Oh, I can't wait to see her."
Booker's 4-year-old little girl was the inspiration that pulled him through.
"I haven't been able to see her this whole time," he said. "I'm ready to see her, oh my gosh."
A celebration awaited Booker at his La Grange home with family, friends and loved ones holding signs and full of cheers. But one sound cut through all the rest.
"Daddy!"
Booker's daughter shouted as she rushed into his arms.
"Oh, I missed you!" she said.
"I know, baby, I know," Booker replied. "Daddy missed you too!"
Neighbors gave him a hero's welcome with a parade of cars. The fire department drove by in a firetruck, and the city mayor even came by to share well-wishes.
"Thought he might not make it three times," Bishop said. "He got experimental medicine they were doing. He was part of research."
Booker has a dire warning to anyone not taking the virus seriously:
"Young people: Wear your mask," he said. "Wash your hands. Do everything. I don't care how old you are. You can get it. Trust me. You can get it."
Doctors said Booker still faces a long road to recovery, including lots of therapy. But he survived when more than 220,000 others in the U.S. have not.
"This is what we hope for. It feels like Christmas, "Kellie said. "It's a win. It's a win."
Copyright 2020 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
