68-year-old Michael David Blessington and his wife 67-year-old Mary managed to recover from coronavirus after their health condition improved when their hospital beds were placed together.
Mary, who struggles with asthma, and Michael, who was diagnosed with lung cancer, were both admitted to Bradford Royal Infirmary on April 25.
The childhood sweethearts, who first met when they were only 13, both had low levels of oxygen when they arrived at the facility.
Michael’s condition worsened to the point that a staff asked him if he wished to be resuscitated in case his heart stopped.
“At first I said, ‘If I’m going to get bad with this and there’s no way out of it, then by all means…’. ‘But after, when I spoke to Mary, she said, ‘You don’t say that,’ and I changed my mind,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
Mary said: “I told him he wasn’t leaving me that quickly,” but she revealed that asked doctors to “give me an injection to let me die.”
They were initially sent for treatment on different wards, Mary was taken to ward 23 and his husband to ward 29.
But their eldest son, Craig, begged staff to treat his parents together. In an interview with the BBC, he said: “They haven’t been apart since they were 13.
They’d do anything for each other, they’re always together. On their holidays Dad fishes and Mum sits with him and reads. Dad is full of tattoos and is a real character, but their relationship is unique.”
The hospital then granted Craig’s wishes and the couple were moved together on ward 29.
Craig believes that it helped his parents recover, especially his dad who made a remarkable recovery.
“We think that was the turning point for Dad – he’d been so ill we thought he would die. He was grey, couldn’t breathe and was getting worse. When they moved him and Mum together that was the turning point. You could see it from there, for Dad definitely,” he expressed.
Mary and Michael are now making a full recovery from coronavirus. They are looking forward to celebrating their 48th wedding anniversary in September.
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