Kansas miracle mom who nearly died of COVID-19 gives birth to healthy boy in Wichita
When Glorimar Pagan came into Wesley Medical Center three months ago, 24 weeks pregnant and critically ill with COVID-19, doctors were prepared for the worst.
Instead, they got the best.
On Friday, Pagan rolled out of Wesley as a healthy young mother, with her healthy newborn baby, Joseph, cradled in her arms.
About 60 doctors, nurses and other hospital staff lined the exit hallway cheering her on her way.
In her native Spanish, Pagan said she was tired but happy after her long medical ordeal that included three weeks in intensive care, on a ventilator and dialysis in a medically induced coma.
She said she doesn’t know how she got infected by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
But she said she now feels fine, other than the delivery fatigue, and she wanted to thank all the people on the medical team who had treated her well and helped her pull through.
“ No fue facil,” she said. Translation: “It wasn’t easy.”
That’s a medical understatement.
“She was the most sick patient I’ve had live in my 25 years (as a doctor),” said obstetrician Dawne Lowden.
Lowden was one of the doctors who treated Pagan during her battle with COVID and she later delivered Joseph. On Friday, she held the newborn while waiting for Pagan’s boyfriend, Jose Vasquez, to pull the car around to pick her up in the circle driveway.
When Pagan came to the hospital, the medical team set up what was essentially a neo-natal intensive care unit outside the door of Pagan’s room, to be ready to perform an emergency caesarean delivery and try to save the baby if the mother died from COVID, Lowden said.
Twice during Pagan’s first week in the hospital, the emergency delivery team was put on alert, Lowden said.
When expectant mothers have COVID-19, they don’t generally pass it to the baby. But at only 24 weeks into the pregnancy, Joseph’s survival would have been touch-and-go, she said.
Pagan, who lives in Dodge City, was allowed to go home for a little over a month after her five-week bout with the coronavirus. She returned to Wesley to deliver her baby because she had developed a level of comfort with the doctors and patient-care staff there.
Pagan ended up carrying the baby to about 37 1/2 weeks, considered a full-term delivery, Lowden said.
She was also the first Wichita patient to be treated with the drug remdesivir, said Dr. Thomas Moore, the infectious disease specialist who treated her.
The drug was granted emergency approval for use on COVID patients May 1, but was in short supply and being rationed by the federal government. Wesley was able to obtain the drug through a program that set some aside for pregnant women and children and Pagan began receiving it about May 10, Moore said.
She was also treated with transfusions of blood plasma from recovered patients who have developed antibodies to resist COVID-19 and a drug called tocilizumab, better known by the brand name Actemra, Moore said.
Actemra is an anti-inflammatory medication ordinarily used to treat rheumatoid arthritis that has shown some promise in reducing lung damage from COVID-19, he said.
Registered nurse Amely Betzen said the entire staff was impressed by Pagan, “how strong she was, how strong her baby was through all of the things we did to get her better.”
“It was definitely a marathon of care,” Betzen said. “It’s amazing to see her recover after seeing how truly sick, how truly ill she was. Literally, it’s amazing. It’s a miracle.”
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
