March 12, 2021
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On a cold Tuesday evening in January, Blanca Lopez and her son Criztiaan Juarez drove from their home in Glendale to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center… Five months earlier, she had nearly died of COVID-19, and an ambulance, following the same route she drove today, took her to UCLA. (UCLA’s Susan Valentine, Dr. Peymon Benharash and Dr. Vadim Gudenzko were quoted. Valentine, Gudenzko, Beharash and UCLA’s Cathy Levenstein were quoted in an accompanying Los Angeles Times article.)
A bedside monitor screamed and grew faint as Lopez, infected with the coronavirus, lost consciousness.
Her heart and brain, deprived of oxygen, weakened. Cells in her blood vessels that maintain pressure began to die. Her kidneys slowed. She felt the room grow dark and quiet.
A nurse rushed in and hit a button on the wall. “Code Blue” sounded throughout the fifth-floor intensive care unit of Adventist Health Glendale medical center.
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Specialists ran to Room 4506. They donned masks and face shields and tried to squeeze air into Lopez’s damaged lungs with a respiratory bag.
On her second day in the hospital, Blanca Lopez texted a selfie to her parents and children so they wouldn’t worry.