SAN ANTONIO — Fewer people are lining up to get the coronavirus vaccine. One man wanted to tell his story to try to convince anyone reading this to get vaccinated.
52-year-old Victor Roman is a truck driver. Last June, what he thought was allergies turned out to be the coronavirus. He's still undergoing intense rehab to try to get his life back. He told us, "I went to work, did okay. Second day was a little bit worse. Third day, they sent me home."
It got so bad that one day he started hallucinating. That's when the family called 911. Roman said, "The ambulance got there and he said, 'You've got very little to live. Jump on the bed. Let me take you to the doctor.'"
Eventually he was put on a ventilator, and lost more than two months of his life. Roman added, "I thought I had been there four days. And they said no, you've been here 68 days. I did not know that."
After all that time battling the virus, his body was, and still is in need, of intense rehab. "Coming in, he was really affected from head to toe with the most basic things. Things that we do every day. Rolling over in bed. Getting up out of bed," said Mark Linkinoggor, a physical therapist at University Health's Robert B. Green Campus. He added, "He's been having difficulty with his arms, gripping with his hands especially on the right."
He's been working with Roman to improve his strength. Linkinoggor told us, "It's like a therapeutic alliance that we establish and its definitely been a privilege to get to work with him and see the progress that he's made. So, hopefully he'll be able to continue on and get back to work."
But before that kind of work, comes the physical therapy kind of work that Roman says he wouldn't want anyone else to have to do. Roman pleaded, "Please. Everybody I ask you, man. Do it for your family. Take your shots. Wear your mask. It's hard."
That's Victor Roman's emotional reason for being vaccinated. Share yours with the hashtag #WeCanDoItSA.com.
For more information about family health call (210) 358-3045. You can also find the rest of Wear The Gown stories, just go to Wear The Gown's website here.
Related links on KENS 5: