99 days in the hospital. 16 days in a coma. Downers Grove man shares his COVID-19 battle

On Christmas Eve, Downers Grove Village Commissioner Rich Kulovany thought he was out of the woods with his COVID-19 diagnosis.

From his bed at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Kulovany texted a friend that he expected to be released soon.

But the next day, doctors transferred Kulovany to the ICU, attached him to a ventilator so he could breathe and put him into a medically induced coma for 16 days.

“COVID-19 is an insidious disease that comes in waves,” said the 69-year-old Kulovany, a village commissioner since April 2019. “I was a perfectly healthy guy before I got COVID.”

As a public official, Kulovany said he and his family decided to be open on social media starting in December about their ongoing ordeal with COVID-19. They've been grateful for the overwhelming support they've received, but also felt it was important to stress the need for vaccinations and to counter anti-maskers likening coronavirus to the flu or labeling it a hoax.

Kulovany suspects he was infected in early December when he was working part-time in the appliance department of a big-box home goods store and was near a customer who had removed his mask.

“I was looking up various appliances on the computer with my back turned to him,” said Kulovany, unaware the customer “had pulled down his mask for an extended period.”

Kulovany quarantined himself when he started feeling ill, but ended up transmitting the virus to immediate and extended family members.

“I later learned that the strain I got was highly contagious,” he said, adding his temperature spiked to 103.7 degrees while at home.

He checked himself into the hospital Dec. 11, after his self-monitored oxygen levels dropped precariously.

Kulovany spent 99 days in three hospitals: Good Samaritan, RML Specialty Hospital in Hinsdale (to wean him off a ventilator and a tracheostomy tube) and then Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton for physical therapy.

But the most alarming time for Kulovany's family was the more than two weeks he spent in a coma.

“We really believed that we were going to lose him because of how quickly he went downhill,” said Kulovany's daughter, Jennifer Ostrum, who has detailed her own COVID-19-related vision and memory issues on social media.

“It was absolutely horrible,” she said, recalling the Christmas Day family Zoom call set up by a nurse to her comatose father. “It felt like nobody had a chance to get closure, no one had a chance to say goodbye or say those final things you want to say to someone when you know you might lose them.”

Even after doctors performed a tracheotomy and brought Kulovany out of the coma Jan. 9, Ostrum was concerned her father had suffered from neurological damage. Kulovany was unable to speak until Feb. 22 after his tracheostomy tube was removed.

Kulovany said he is grateful he survived, but notes he's dealing with lingering COVID-19 issues, even after returning home March 19 and receiving vaccination doses on March 20 and April 30.

His lung capacity is only at 69% — up from 20% at his sickest — and his previously 20/20 vision has become blurred, Kulovany said. His hands and feet are still inflamed, so much so that he said he can't put on his wedding ring.

Though Kulovany has not returned to work, he is attending village council meetings. He started participating remotely Feb. 16, and then in-person with a mask after his birthday in April.

“I want people to know that this is not a glorified version of the flu. It's a serious disease,” he said. “Some people can get it and have mild symptoms, while others are close to passing away as a result of it. I'm still dealing with the aftermath.”