Conquering COVID
In November 2020, Maria Young, a healthy 41-year-old, was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital with severe COVID-19. Her condition deteriorated quickly, and within hours, doctors placed her on ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation)—the highest level of life support. Maria remained on ECMO for 69 days, the longest successful run at Johns Hopkins at the time.
During her hospitalization, Maria was fully sedated, and her family could not visit due to COVID-19 restrictions. Still, her mother remained her advocate, calling every day and encouraging her to breathe, even remotely. Nurses held the phone to Maria’s ear while her mother said, "Maria, breathe. I’m breathing with you." Against all odds, Maria regained consciousness in late January 2021, and after months of rehabilitation, she began her recovery.
Watching Maria’s story brought tears to my eyes. I wasn’t working in the medical field during the peak of COVID-19, but I’ve seen how deeply it affected those who were. There’s a shared experience among healthcare professionals who worked during the pandemic—a badge of honor they wear with pride. Maria’s resilience, combined with the dedication of her medical team, not only saved her life but also gave hope to her caregivers.
Inspired by her journey, Maria founded Maria’s Miracle, a nonprofit organization that supports critical care training and provides resources to patients and families navigating ECMO and ICU recovery.
Maria’s Miracle offers a wide array of resources:
Virtual Support Groups: Weekly support groups for ECMO survivors and caregivers in partnership with the ARDS Alliance.
Educational Materials: Tools to help families understand ECMO and ICU care, such as a factsheet on ECMO, a glossary of terms, and a link to a guide by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO).
Book Recommendations: For trauma recovery, critical illness, and coping with COVID-19, including In Shock by Dr. Rana Awdish and Every Deep-Drawn Breath by Dr. Wes Ely.
Coping Strategies: Insights from Maria’s community on managing the emotional toll of illness.
The nonprofit’s mission also focuses on:
Funding Advanced Medical Training: Maria’s Miracle supports funding in critical care medicine, including ECMO training.
Providing Resources for Families: Maria’s Miracle offers guidance to help families navigate the emotional and logistical challenges of extended ICU stays.
Maria’s story highlights the critical role ECMO plays in saving lives. Through her nonprofit, she ensures that others receive the same high level of care she did while also spreading awareness about mental health support for COVID-19 survivors and their families.
How You Can Help
By donating to Maria’s Miracle, you are helping advance critical care worldwide. Donations help fund:
Training in critical care medicine and ECMO.
Development of a toolkit for families about ECMO treatment.
Online resources aimed at debunking health misinformation related to ICU care.
Awareness campaigns promoting healthy recovery strategies after ICU stays.
Maria’s fight to survive COVID-19 is a powerful testament to human resilience and the dedication of medical professionals. Today, through her nonprofit, Maria continues to give back to the medical community that saved her life while helping families navigate the toughest moments of their lives.
Join the ECMO 143 Learning Journey:
Other Links:
https://bit.ly/ecmo143-youtube
https://bit.ly/ecmo143-fbgroup
https://bit.ly/ecmo143-company
Acknowledgments:
Here is a list of tools and resources that assisted in creating this article and others. I developed three custom GPTs to assist in specialized research: AI ECMO Expert, ECMO Specialist Handover Practice, and Micro Definitions (MD-GPT). These tools were instrumental in gathering and analyzing information from key sources.
Special thanks to the AI platforms and tools that facilitated this research:
GPT-4o/o1, Claude 3.5 Sonnet/Opus, Perplexity
Grammarly for editorial and proofreading assistance
Leonardo AI, DALL-E3 AI Image Generator, Microsoft Designer, and Adobe Express for generating images and visual content