https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/08/covid-orphans-us
"Pharish Jeannis was “a man among men”, in the words of his wife, Elashia
Hall-Jeannis. He served in the army and survived being shot in Kuwait,
receiving a Purple Heart medal. He never got sick. He always made their
children, Journee and Anthony, laugh.
Then, in the summer of 2021, he got a cough that wouldn’t quit. After about a
month of borrowing the nebulizer his wife used for her asthma, one Wednesday
night in late July, when they were out on a date, Elashia suggested, “Maybe you
have Covid.”
They were both fully vaccinated. Pharish worked at a pharmaceutical company in
Covington, Georgia, and was keenly aware of the virus and its dangers.
On 30 July, he tested positive for Covid. On Monday, 2 August, the first day of
school for their elementary school-aged children, Elashia was driving to her
job as a social worker at an Atlanta homeless shelter when she got a call from
her husband.
“Come home now. I can’t see!” he said. Pharish was diabetic. At the local
hospital’s emergency room, doctors thought he might be in diabetic shock.
Within days, the 40-year-old’s lungs appeared “white” in X-rays, Elashia
recalls, showing that he was losing the ability to breathe. After several weeks
in the hospital, Pharish got on the phone one day and told Anthony, who was
then six, “If I don’t make it home, remember to always do what I told you to
do.” What he meant has remained a secret that Anthony has yet to reveal to his
mother.
Pharish Jeannis died on 22 August.
That day, Anthony and Journee, Pharish’s 11-year-old daughter from a previous
marriage, entered deep grief – and Elashia soon embarked on an isolating, often
frustrating quest to find her children help in coping with their family’s
loss."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: April 13, 2023
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-81447422
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
