KIRTLAND, Ohio — In Kirtland this weekend, Kelly McAfee came home.
For the past six days, the married mother of two had been battling the coronavirus.
"I just thought 'I’m going to die. This is going to kill me,'" McAfee said. "I felt it."
She believes she caught the disease from a co-worker in mid-March and, at first, hoped to beat it alone.
"I’m healthy," she said. "You know, I’m a healthy person. I get sick and I get better. My body heals itself from almost everything I ever get.”
But then, nearly 10 days in, her health took a turn, and one morning she woke up struggling to breathe. Her husband took her to University Hospitals Richmond Medical Center in Cleveland.
As she fought to live, McAfee said she focused on one single thought.
"I can’t leave my kids," she said, "And [I] told myself, 'You are going to fight this, you’re going to beat this, and you’re going to live.'"
She cannot say enough good things about the doctors and nurses who saved her, and hopes her story will help others take precautions and avoid what she endured.
"This is real," she said. "I just almost died from it. Please do what you need to do."
McAfee said her husband is showing mild symptoms of COVID-19, while her 17 and 22-year-old children do now show any symptoms at all.
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