Aurora youth pastor counting blessings after battle with COVID-19
In March, about when Illinois' stay-at-home order first went into effect, First Apostolic Church of Aurora youth pastor Andrew Coffield and his family headed to his childhood home in Grand Blanc, Michigan, near Flint.
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. His wife, Chelsea, already was doing her work as a graphic designer for the Illinois Credit Union League from home. And they figured their 2-year-old son, Carson, who Andrew says "would give the Energizer bunny a run for his money," could "share that energy with family."
What Coffield couldn't leave behind, however, was COVID-19.
Just two days after arriving in Michigan, Coffield, 29, was playing basketball with his nephew when he began experiencing the symptoms - shortness of breath, fatigue, dry throat.
The next day, he woke up with a temperature of 104.3. When he began to cough up blood later that week, he realized he needed to take action.
"It felt like I was dying," said Coffield, who soon after was at Hurley Medical Center in Flint. The hospital couldn't immediately test him for the coronavirus, but when his chest X-ray results came back, a nurse told him, "Your lungs look worse than any lungs I have ever seen on an X-ray before. Your lungs are destroyed."
Coffield was moved to intensive care and, after initially fighting it, consented to be placed on a ventilator. He said he doesn't remember being on the ventilator as a result of the medicine he was receiving, but it was during that time that he tested positive for COVID-19.
Chelsea Coffield describes the ensuing two-week period of separation from her husband as "very stressful," saying she spent a lot of it praying. She also began displaying symptoms of COVID-19 herself. She couldn't taste or smell and had severe headaches that made her dizzy.
In the meantime, the outlook was grim for Andrew. At its worst, he said, doctors feared he may never be free of a ventilator. That's when, he said, a miracle occurred.
He quickly improved enough to be taken off the ventilator and, within just a few days, was reunited with his family and driving home to Aurora.
"I just kept on smiling," Chelsea Coffield said. "I was so excited. When we finally got him in the car, I remember he was sitting in the front seat and I was sitting behind him, and I just wrapped my arms around him. I just didn't want to let him go, because I hadn't held him in so long."
What caused the rapid turnaround? Coffield credits the spread of his story through the United Pentecostal Church International and Aurora communities through social media.
"There were hundreds of thousands of people praying for me all over the world," he said. "You can't explain it."
While he's still not fully recovered - his lung function isn't back to normal, making tasks like mowing the lawn arduous - he's returned to his duties at the church, teaching lessons virtually.
It remains to be seen what the family will do after the stay-at-home order is lifted. But one thing is clear, he said.
"We haven't held back our faith, because I feel like it's a message that people need to have, to allow faith to trump fear, because a lot of people are fearful right now, but that fear is not going to do anybody any good," he said.