Jeff Trefry’s daughter Jadyn tested positive for COVID-19 on September 22, she was sick for two days with no sense of taste or smell.
Three weeks later, things started to spiral out of control–in and out of multiple ERs with no answers, before being taken to MultiCare Valley Hospital.
“Then the second ER visit she looked at me and said, ‘dad, I don’t know what’s going on, but something isn’t right. I don’t feel normal,'” Jeff recalled. “A few hours later, I got the worst phone call a father on this planet will ever get. They called and said, ‘Mr. Trefry, your daughter’s prognosis is poor.'”
Jadyn was put in the critical care unit with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, a disease associated with COVID, but usually only appearing in young children.
“My daughter’s 19, this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Jeff said. “When your baby opens their eyes with panic in them, gasping for air? I wouldn’t wish that on a person I hate. Nobody should see that. Not the nurses, not the doctors, and definitely not a parent.”
Jeff said Jadyn asked to be put on a ventilator to save her heart and lungs. There was so much fluid in her system that her lungs were basically drowning.
“I can tell you from experiencing it, you don’t ever want to watch your child come off a ventilator,” said Jeff. “It’s horrific.”
Jeff was skeptical of COVID.
“I hate to admit that when this all started I was one of those people that had posted online that COVID wasn’t nearly as bad as people saying, the vaccine wasn’t safe, don’t get the vaccine.”
But after what he’s been through?
“I would say COVID is real,” Jeff said. “Whether you feel the vaccine is right for you or not, that’s a personal decision I suppose, but I’d like people to keep in mind that that decision has consequences for your children.”
His emotions from the whole ordeal are overwhelming.
“I’ll probably have nightmares for the rest of my life because of this experience,” Jeff said. “The only silver lining of this is that my daughter didn’t die. That’s the only silver lining. I’m going to spend a lot of time the next few months feeling pretty guilty, and wondering if I’m the reason this happened.”
Trefry said his daughter is expected to recover.
