“It was just like walking into a horror scene. It’s just been horrible,” Winter Haven resident Lisa Steadman told WFTS, ABC Action News.
The 58-year-old thought she was through the worst of it.
She and her husband Ron both got diagnosed with COVID-19 in early August.
“I was in the hospital for eight days. Every day I talked to him,” she said.
Ron never ended up in the hospital. Instead, he was home taking care of the dogs, while his wife was gone.
“Sunday, when I talked to him, he told me his phone was acting up, that it wouldn’t hold a charge. I said ‘okay,’ well then Monday came, I couldn’t get ahold of him. So I called the police, Winter Haven Police Department, said could they do a wellness check. They came out, did a wellness check, talked to him, he was out with the dogs, they said, ‘he has a cold,’ but he was okay as far as not fixing to pass away or something.”
But sometime between then and when Steadman left the hospital Wednesday evening, things took a turn for the worst.
“I could hear our little dogs. They were all in the bedroom together, the dogs and him. I rolled to the bedroom door, I opened the door, and he was on the bed passed away,” she said.
Ron died from COVID-related complications.
“He always wore his mask, he always used his hand sanitizer,” she said.
She said that neither of them had received a COVID-19 vaccine – not because they were against it, only because they wanted to wait.
Now she shares a message to everyone else.
“Remember you are not promised tomorrow. So you better make sure you tell your loved ones you love them,” she said.
