Eduardo & Angélica COVID fight

Meet my parents Eduardo and Angelica Contreras, they married back on October 30, 1959 this year they will be 61 years together in marriage (WoW-Amazing). I am the youngest of 4 children that had the privilege of experiencing life due to the union of this two-amazing people. They educated us to work hard, respect, provide, and strive to our fullest potential by giving it your all. As all families we have had our share of tragedies, in August of 2008 my 46 year old brother Carlos died on a unfortunate freeway accident that left 3 children fatherless and as expected this unfortunate tragedy hit my whole family very hard, specially my parents; however after the sorrow of losing a son the family was able to break through this misfortune and continued to live life to fullest. Then, COVID-19 happened on march 2020 as recommended by the health authorities we all took the precautions, social distanced, face covering, constant washing we observed all protocols and recommendations. We managed to pass the initial effect of this malicious virus without any hitch; however this second wave we were not so lucky, both my parents contracted the virus. My mom was the first one to experience any symptoms although scary, her symptoms were manageable while my dad experience no symptoms. The following week, as my mother recovered and it seemed she did not suffer any long lasting effects; my dad started experiencing symptoms, and we believed his experience with the virus would be mild too, as my mother. Suddenly out of the blue he was hit with a high fever (~101.7 F), shortness of breath and an all deterioration of his well-being. Using a home oximeter his O2 saturation on his blood dropped to below 70, supposably the optimum of this measurement should be >98, although >=95 is acceptable. On Thursday October 22 we drove him directly to the hospital (El Paso University Medical Center) and very professionally he was received and checked in immediately. He was put on O2 and was stabilized. Through Friday, he continued stable and no drawbacks. Then early Saturday morning his O2 saturation dropped to 40, he was put on a respirator and incubated, Then we received a call asking if we authorized a “full resuscitation order” this is when the heart starts to give out and his chest is compressed with both hands, this is done with so much strength and pressure that we were told they could break his rib cage. Every day a call is made asking for his status and he has remained stable, but there has not been much progress, the awesome front-line defense teams that have been fighting this horrible disease have always told us that this will be a long haul. Progress will be very slow and we would have to wait day by day for the situation to improve. Researching cost of ICU care at an average it is from $12K up to $20K per day, depending on the patience condition, region and the costs of for and non-profit hospitals. The average stay for patient recovering from COVID is more than 3 weeks. Taking this into consideration and choosing the most optimistic option 3 weeks at $15K per day, the care that my father care will cost about $315K. We are looking into our options, insurance, government programs and hospital payment options to be able to pay for this other nightmare. My family and I humbly ask for your help, anything will help. The family would like to continue celebrating more anniversaries, birthdays, and remain to share lifelong experiences.