COLORADO SPRINGS — After a brush with death and nearly three months in a hospital, Kayla Kammrad just wanted to go home to her two young sons on Thursday.
Kammrad, 22, had the H1N1 flu, and her doctors at Penrose Hospital said she was the most gravely ill patient they’ve had who lived through the virus.
She was so sick, her husband was rushed home from Iraq when she fell ill, and her survival was in doubt.
The Cañon City woman doesn’t remember the ordeal, after being on a ventilator and heavily sedated for weeks. Her family said she thought the illness was just a cold at first, until it kept getting worse, and she ended up in the hospital with a 105-degree fever.
Dr. Russell Lee, a pulmonary and critical-care specialist, said the virus ravaged her lungs, and she spent weeks in the intensive-care unit as doctors and nurses tried to supply her body with enough oxygen.
When she got the virus in October — while the numbers infected with H1N1 were peaking nationally — her husband, Jeff, was serving in Ramadi, Iraq. He is a corporal in the National Guard.
He was home two days later, he said, splitting his time between his wife’s bedside and his boys, Jordan, 4, and Tanner, 2.
“It was crazy for them for a little while,” Jeff Kammrad said, “because I was gone for so long, and then Mom was gone.”
On Thursday, the family’s main emotion seemed to be gratitude. They were thankful that Kammrad is OK, thankful to the doctors and nurses at Penrose, and thankful to the community in Cañon City and beyond that has rallied to their aid.
Oh, and Kayla Kammrad was looking forward to one more thing when she got home: Grandma’s taco salad.
“I’m ready to eat some real food,” she said.
