OKEECHOBEE — Donny Arnold’s mother used to call him five times a day. “She drove me crazy with those calls,” he remembered …

“I just wish I could get one more of those calls.”

Arnold’s mother, Jeanette McClure, 78, died Monday, July 27. While she had underlying health conditions she had battled for years, the doctors told Arnold that COVID-19 was the cause of death.

Arnold agreed to share his mother’s story because he wants everyone to know COVID-19 is real and everyone should take precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.

“It’s not real to a lot of people until it affects them,” he said.

Arnold said his mother had suffered from pulmonary fibrosis for three years, but was managing it. She was a fighter, he explained. She had heart surgery 30 years ago. Over the years, she battled other health problems but she managed her health issues. She was, he said, “a spitfire.”

When the pandemic started in March, Arnold, who is a firefighter/paramedic, took every precaution to keep his mom safe. When she caught a cold, he coordinated with her doctors and cared for her at home. But one day while he was at work, she suffered a fall that sent her to the hospital, and then “next door” for rehabilitation, he explained, where she was housed in the “C” wing.

She was in the Okeechobee Health Care Facility for 95 days when she started running a high fever and had diarrhea, he continued. She was transported to Raulerson Hospital and placed in isolation. At the hospital, she tested positive for COVID-19. He said the first X-ray did not show any COVID in her lungs. “It must have been in her nasal passages but had not reached her lungs yet,” he explained. Within five days her health declined and the X-rays did show COVID in the lungs. She spent four days in ICU before she passed away.

Arnold said the hospital staff did everything they could, but he wonders if the shortage of the antiviral drug Remdesivir was an issue in his mother’s death. If they could have administered it sooner, it might have helped her, he said. Supplies appear to be going to the more populated areas first, he added.

Arnold said it makes him angry when he sees people on social media calling the COVID-19 pandemic “fake” or making harsh comments about those with pre-existing conditions, claiming COVID didn’t cause their deaths.

If you have pre-existing conditions, COVID will aggravate or accelerate your pre-existing conditions and you could die, he said.

“My mother had issues for 30 years. The doctors took great care of her and kept her alive,” he said. He is convinced she could still be alive if she had not contracted the COVID-19 virus.

Arnold said his mother was a twin, and she and her sister liked to dress alike, even as adults. He said when her sister died, she kept an outfit matching the one her sister was buried in. She told him she wanted to be buried in that outfit, “so they can match forever.”

As of the Aug. 4, Florida Department of Health report, Okeechobee Health Care Facility had 13 residents currently COVID-10 positive, five who tested positive and were transferred to other facilities and 25 staff members who have tested positive.

Editor’s note: If you or a family member has tested postiive for COVID-19 and you would like to share your story, email okeenews@newszap.com or call 863-763-3134.