Graduates of Riverside College are practicing their profession in different parts of the world. Two of our Nursing alumni are sharing their COVID-19 stories as survivors.
Mr. Lucio Lofranco belongs to the BSN Batch 1996. He has been working with Fresenius Medical Care as a Dialysis Nurse since 2013. Here is his personal testimony of how he was able to beat the battle against COVID-19.
“There were days when I felt the possibility of death especially when I went to the Emergency Room when I got so dehydrated a few days I
got into the infection. My first symptoms included backache, neck ache, then lowgrade fever which gradually increased to 40 something. Then I lost my sense of taste. Imagine, I was drinking pure lemon juice but it tasted like water. I had LBM for 3 days. What made me thrive? I clung on the promises of God, that He will never leave me nor forsake me. Whatever happens to me, I leave everything in God’s hands…and I count it all joy. I am grateful for the prayers of family and loved ones that sustained me during my ordeal. God is so merciful that He spared my 3 boys and my wife who tirelessly took care of me for almost 3 weeks. I believe that nothing is wasted in God if we live according to His plan.”
Joy Gayongo-Yu is a graduate of BS in Biology but she decided to take up BS in Nursing as a second course in the early 90s. She graduated
from RCI in 1993 and worked in Australia for 13 years. In 2016, she worked with John Hopkins Hospital in Maryland then transferred to California in 2019. She started working in the Telemetry of University of California Irvine (UCI) last April and it was where she got her COVID-19. Ms. Yu shares her experience:
“I think I got the virus from a patient who was tested positive. When I started having symptoms, I drove myself to the Emergency Room to protect my husband and son from acquiring it from me. I was intubated for 9 days. I was the first in our hospital to be given convalescent plasma. I was also given IV sedation and IV paralytic. They really put me to sleep so the medical intervention can work without me fighting it. When I woke up, I was very disoriented and I felt very weak. I experienced physical deconditioning but with Physical Therapy exercises and breathing exercises, I slowly recovered. The support of my family and my faith really played a big part in my healing. Through
prayers, my doctors were guided with the right treatment plan that was best for me.”