“Usually people would be in the intensive care unit for a week or 10 days, and now we have people that have been here, you know, 20, 30 days,” Wissman said.

‘I don’t have the breath’

It was a joyful moment April 12 when Curtis was wheeled by staff out of Hillsdale Hospital — moments caught by a video on Facebook.

He wanted to be home. He wanted to see family. He wanted to return to his 30- by 50-foot pole barn and tinker with his Honda VTX 1300 motor trike and camper.

But the bright sun and blue sky Thursday seemed a cruel tease.

Curtis, 66, is still on a walker and an oxygen tank nearly a month after he left the hospital. He hasn’t made it from his house to his barn just 300 feet away.

“I have a day that seems like I’ll be OK, and then the next I can’t get out of bed,” he said.

It takes more than an hour to shower: “I don’t have the breath,” he said.

Now, formerly contained emotions spill over often, said the former owner of an asphalt company.

“I go out on my porch every day and cry,” he said. “That’s not me.”

Eric Goedge spent more than a week at Beaumont Royal Oak hospital, fighting COVID-19.

The Berkley man was rushed by an ambulance to Beaumont on March 28 — so weak he’d been unable to leave his own bed for three days. He never was on a ventilator, and though miserable, he remained alert his entire stay, Goedge said.

Surely, then, he’d bounce back, he thought.

He was stunned that when he arrived back home April 5, he could no longer climb the stairs of his house without pulling himself up by his arms.

The slow comeback is maddening, said Geodge, who coordinates telecommunications field technicians. Just within the past week he’s “starting to feel pretty close to normal.”

The Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, part of the Detroit Medical Center, has treated more than a dozen patients transferred from other hospitals for post-COVID recovery.

Additionally, it is opening an outpatient program for those who go home and realize “it still takes everything out [them] to go from my bedroom to my bathroom,” said Patty Jobbitt, the institute’s CEO.

In both programs, however, therapy clients must be past the point of contagiousness.

Henry Ford Health System designated 17 of its 40-bed therapy unit at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital specifically for COVID-19 patients, serving 28 patients from the system’s Macomb and Detroit hospitals in April. (Other patients were still so weak they were released to nursing homes.)

The Detroit hospital, meanwhile, extended therapy twice daily, rather than once, and into weekends to its patients, preparing them to return home, according to David Olejarz, Henry Ford spokesperson.

‘It was frightening. I just cried.”

For her part, Blodgett, 55, drove to the Bronson Hospital emergency room in Kalamazoo on March 26 with what she thought was the flu. Tested positive for COVID-19; things got worse and fast.

Finally on April 17, she left Bronson after 21 days fighting coronavirus, including nine days on a ventilator. She began therapy at Mary Free Bed in Grand Rapids, which a day earlier had opened a new 16-bed ReCOVery Unit — a separated rehabilitation unit for COVID-19 patients.

The longtime logistics supervisor at Humphrey Products, which ironically manufacturers parts for ventilators, had been sedated while on a ventilator.

But while that may ensure the comfort and safety of a patient in a life-threatening crisis, it means unused muscles begin to atrophy — legs, arms, torso, even the chest muscles that help with breathing, said Terry Milnamow, an occupational therapist who worked with Blodgett.

“It’s severe deconditioning and a lot of stress on the body,” he said.

Things like walking across the room, climbing stairs or even standing up from the toilet are impossible without help, he said.

“My legs were Jell-O. I hadn’t walked in over a month,” Blodgett said.

Blodgett also found that the ventilator left damage — wrecking her voice and, worse, making it dangerous to swallow. Staff taught her to use special thickeners for her water and cranberry juice, making the liquids easier to manage. She decided to skip the coffee for a while.

“I can’t do that,” she said, laughing about it now. “It’s awful. Thick coffee is like something at the bottom of the pot.”

Blodgett also was surprised at how COVID-19 had ground down her emotional and mental resolve in the hospital.

For weeks, her only human contact in a strange hospital room had been strangers’ eyes above masks and behind face shields. She had been groggy and defiant at the hospital, yanking out a feeding tube several times, something she’d never consider under normal circumstances.

“I’m not like that. But for days, there was this fear of not seeing anyone I knew. It was frightening. I just cried,” she said.

Lingering respiratory issues for COVID-19 patients mean the very act of breathing can be difficult as they struggle against a mental fog and reteach bodies basic tasks, therapist Milnamow said.

“Your lungs aren’t as effective as they were,” he said. “A lot of times, [patients aren’t] limited as much by their muscle strength, but by their breathing.”

For many, showering now requires extraordinary safety planning — setting out shower supplies before, arranging clothes so they can be put on more easily afterward, strategizing the placement of a cane or walker and a seat for frequent resting, said occupational therapist Chris Boer, who also worked with Blodgett.

He said his patients often tell him “it shouldn’t be this hard.”

Blodgett agreed: Part of recovery at the start is the mental game — pushing forward while also allowing herself to sit and breathe “and pace myself.”

“But every day, I’m stronger,” she said. “It may take some time, but I’ll get there.”

Detroit Free Press reporter Kristen Shamus contributed to this report.