Last April 22, in Room 1122 of the Medical City in Ortigas, at about 12:55 am, my great friend, Jessie David passed away. After only a few minutes, at around 1:30 am. I was there by his side. It was me, Monique, Alex, Abi and his wife Mags who surrounded him. We prayed around his bed, went home for a while only to breastfeed, and came back when it was finally time for him to be cremated near my house at about 5pm. Angelo and Pepper Lozada came to be with us too.
I was and still am devastated by his death. But I am posting this to answer a question many people have been asking me. “What happened? Did he die of Covid?”
The fast answer is no, it was not Covid-19 that took his life. Until his death, he tested negative for Covid a total of 4 times. So what killed him?
You see, last year, his childhood friend Jay, who was based in Saudi passed away. October 2019, his best friend Kirk also passed away in St. Lukes QC, due to cancer. He was there almost everyday, overcoming his fear of hospitals all because of love. Several times, I went there to pray over him.
February of this year, Jessie’s mother gets hospitalized in St. Lukes too. She was intubated and was almost at the brink of death.
A week later, his father-in-law (Mags’ dad), gets operated on in nearby De Los Santos hospital. What was supposed to be an easy procedure led to complications that ended his life.
By this time, Jessie was already getting sick with fever and an infection on his face similar to mumps. Several antibiotics were given but to no avail. Doctors also diagnosed him to have developed an autoimmune disease because of the stress. This means his immune system was so strong it mistakenly attacks the body. So they had to give him medicine to weaken it.
Despite all these, he went to his father-in-law’s wake in Laguna to be beside Mags despite being advised to rest. Also, because of the medically supressed immunity, he developed cough which led to pneumonia. A test in St. Lukes yielded him negative for Covid.
He has been bedridden at home since early March, with Mags only by his side (we also visited and prayed for him there) but last April 9, no longer bearing the pain, they went to Medical City. That is where the last 3 tests for Covid were made, all of them yielding negative results.
Last April 19, his oxygen level went down so he had to be intubated and sent to the ICU. While he was there, he continuously wrote all of us his last words, being able to fill almost an inch thick of bond paper. Finally, he wrote that he was in so much pain, he wants to rest.
So… it was not Covid that killed him because he never had it. That is the reason why, to this date, we continue to look after those he left behind. It is a promise we all made to each other even before he got sick. We want to set the facts straight. If he was Covid positive, we would all be PUI. It was his sacrifice for the people he loved!
Before I wrote this, I remembered,… Jessie’s real name is Jesus.
