He has been fighting off the infection for 20 days. And he beat it. With tears in his eyes and shaking voice, he clearly told us how happy he was to be alive. He urged the people to stay at home, be disciplined, as no one needs ventilators, infusion, therapies, hospital…
Mr Mihailo Vukić (46) from Bar is the first recovered Montenegrin patient from Covid-19. Fear, nightmare, fighting for life… a drawing of his sons, Petar and Luka, gave him strength to fight and win the coronavirus.
Now he’s sharing his story with Cdm…
Mihailo returned home from London where he was on a business trip on 7 March. Three days later, he got a high fever. He wasn’t coughing and had no other signs of Covid-19. He decided to self-isolate and have no contact with his family. With no one.
He picked up a phone number for coronavirus-related issues and told them he was having a high temperature.
He’d had such a high temperature for seven days. And then he decided to go to the hospital all alone and required to be tested.
On 18 March, he tested positive for Covid-19. He was hospitalized in Bar.
On Saturday, 21 March, a CT scan showed his lungs were greatly damaged, the effects of the disease got worse and he was admitted to the Infectious Disease Clinic in Podgorica.
“And then my nightmare started. Working conditions in the Clinic were quite poor. I’m sorry for the medics, nurses and technicians who have to work under such conditions. I got quite a shock. I saw the staff in safety suits, wearing protective googles… I have to say they are doing their job great; they’re so committed to it. However, the whole experience is quite shocking. In one moment, you hear that a patient in a room next to yours passed away. However, I tried to be positive. I wasn’t panicking. I was telling everybody that everything was okay even though I knew it wasn’t like that. Three days later, I got worse, they put me in the Intensive care unit. Now, when everything finished, I’m aware of the things that had happened. I was in a such a serious condition that they had to put me in the Intensive care unit,“ Mr Vukić told CdM
He continued: “I spent 10 days in the Intensive care unit. The conditions there were excellent. I will be grateful to them for the rest of my life. They took 24-hour care of me. All of them. Health workers are doing their job great. They fight, they’re devoted. I was in a better mental health there even though they got me because of a very bad health condition. After many infusions, the oxygen pumped into my lungs via a ventilator and so many therapies, I began to feel better. After I was tested negative for the novel virus a second time, I was discharged from hospital.“
Mr Vukić is now sharing his story because he wants people to take the deadly virus seriously, to stay home and be disciplined.
He will self-isolate for another 14 days after which he will be tested for Covid-19 again. Until then, he won’t be seeing his family at all as he wants to be sure he’s fully recovered from the virus.
