Man Sent Home on Hospice Care Recovers From COVID-19

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KOKH)– Nelson Cresente is the type of patient doctors fear will contract COVID-19.

Cresente has a heart condition, diabetes and lung issues.

When doctors said he needed to be put on a ventilator, he refused.

That decision is what his wife of 25 years, Lola Cresente, may have saved his life.

Sent home on hospice care, Cresente thought his days were numbered.

His miraculous recovery from COVID has those in health care like Sara Brickey, the President of Valir Pace, shocked.

“It is something that’s not explainable by medicine alone,” Brickey said.

“I really thought the doctor was right,” Lola Cresente said. “There was many a days where I thought well maybe this is going to happen, maybe he’s going to die. Maybe I’m going to be by myself.”

On those tough days, Lola turned to her faith to get her through.

One day a neighbor came over asking to pray over Nelson.

“She came over and she put her hands on the right lung, and she said in the name of God I want him to be able to open that lung up,” Lola Cresente said.

What happened the next day is something those at Valir Pace cannot explain.

“Our nurse practitioner and a hospice nurse went to his home and assessed him and checked on him,” Brickey said. “They heard air movement, something that they had not been able to hear since he’d been discharged home on hospice.”

The moment she heard the news, Lola was overcome with emotion, dropping to her knees in prayer.

Nelson received a special gift this holiday: the gift of life.

“I go outside, taking my little dog for a walk a little bit,” Nelson Cresente said. “I take it one day at a time and tell God I’m better.”

Lola is taking advantage of the time with her husband that she didn’t think she had.

“Thank God I have the love of my life, my soulmate to spend the rest of my life with,” Lola Cresente said. “We’ve been together 25 years and I wasn’t about to give up now.”

It’s a story of hope, faith and maybe a miracle.