Regina man describes ICU experience fighting COVID-19 variant

Dianne Desjarlais-Cardinal is praying people take COVID-19 as seriously as she is praying for her son to recover fully.

Matthew Cardinal’s condition has slowly improved to the point where doctors moved him out of the intensive care unit (ICU) last week, but he’s still not ready to be discharged from hospital yet.

Desjarlais-Cardinal said the virus changed her 34-year-old son from a perfectly healthy man with no comorbidities to a hospital patient struggling to breathe in the ICU.

“I couldn’t believe how he was well — here he was a very healthy, young guy — and then to be reduced to that in such a short period of time,” Desjarlais-Cardinal said.

Cardinal doesn’t know where or how he contracted the B.1.1.7 variant spreading across the province, but he figures it was during one of his shifts as a bartender and server in Regina.

On March 15, Cardinal started feeling unwell and went home with a headache. As he isolated and arranged for a COVID-19 test, his symptoms became worse.

Fever, chills, body aches and difficulty breathing all followed after his headache. When he woke up on March 22, he reached for his phone to call an ambulance.

“I couldn’t really breathe. I was gasping. I knew if I didn’t call the ambulance then and there, I was going to be gone the next day probably,” Cardinal said.

For Desjarlais-Cardinal, it was the first time she’d ever seen her son in such a helpless state. There was nothing she could do as she was under orders from public health officials to isolate away from her son.

“(It was difficult) seeing him leave in an ambulance like that — all alone and not have someone there — and not be able to have someone at the hospital there when he was going through that,” Desjarlais-Cardinal said of watching her son leave for Regina General Hospital.

Matthew Cardinal (left) is pictured with his mother Dianne Desjarlais-Cardinal. Matthew was put in a medically induced coma so he could be put on a ventilator after contracting the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant. He was hospitalized on March 22 and was still in hospital as of April 7. (Submitted by Dianne Desjarlais-Cardinal)

Doctors quickly discovered signs of pneumonia in Cardinal’s lungs as well as a new blood clot. He was moved to the ICU so he could be intubated to help him breathe.

“Just before I went to the ICU, I made a Facebook post saying, ‘If I don’t pull through this, this is goodbye,’ ” Cardinal said.

“I didn’t know what would happen.”

Cardinal was put in a medically induced coma so he could be put on a ventilator. Doctors would wake him periodically to check on his condition. Waking up to tubes and wires in and around his body caused him to panic the first time he was roused.

“Each time I would come out of it, I’d look around. Seeing young people wheeled in and whatnot was scary. Then they would have to put me under again,” he said.

“I was just waiting for my turn to die.”

He’s not sure how much longer he will be in hospital, but he hopes it’ll only be a few days.

“I managed to get out of bed by myself and go and sit by the chair,” Cardinal said of his condition Wednesday.

“Considering just a few days ago I needed two nurses to help me do that, I can get up now and do it myself.”

Cardinal said he will have to take blood thinners for the next three months to try to avoid further complications later.

Both Cardinal and his mother are pleading with people to take COVID-19 more seriously, if they haven’t been already, as Cardinal’s fight continues.

“Be very careful, because you never know where you’re going to catch it, how you’re going to contract it or what it’s going to do to you,” Cardinal said.

“You’re not invincible.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Andrew Shepherd