DESPERSONAGES 5 JACKIE SCOTT

When I moved to Portage, Wisconsin in 1990 the first person I met was Jackie Scott.  I was in Portage to interview for a position as the Executive Director of the South Central Wisconsin Private Industry Council – a nonprofit organization funded through public and private resources to provide job training to individuals in a four county area. Jackie was the Executive Assistant for the organization and she greeted me and my white Pontiac Fiero wearing a very cool blue polka dotted dress. I got the job and we have been friends ever since.  I could not have succeeded at the job if it hadn’t been for Jackie – she is smart, has wonderful writing skills, was very knowledgeable about our mission and willing to do the work that was necessary to grow the organization and establish a very visible and viable presence in Wisconsin.

Jackie was also a young mother of one little girl, was pursuing an accounting degree from a small college in Madison and wanted to learn more about the operations of our successful nonprofit. Very quickly she became the Internal Control Manager, responsible for keeping us organized, in compliance with the law and for keeping all of us sane! When she gave birth to her son, she brought him to work with her and we all had the pleasure of his company during that time.

I left the organization in 1996 to become the Commissioner of Trade and Consumer Protection for the State of Wisconsin in Madison.  Jackie left soon after and became the Executive Assistant to Reed Coleman, the CEO and President of Madison Kipp Corporation also in Madison, a position that she recently left due to the death of Reed Coleman and because she became very ill with Covid-19. This is her story.  She wants you to listen to it.

In 2018, Jackie began to have pulmonary problems, loaded on top of her ongoing Lupus and other autoimmune problems. Over time she saw two pulmonologists at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinic and she began with a protocol of prednisone which did help her breathing deficiencies. She also began taking Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir and other drugs to try and reduce her acute respiratory problems, diagnosed as Eosinophilic Asthma. There was some relief and she stayed on those drugs until she was diagnosed with Covid-19 in January of 2021.

 On January 4, 2021 Jackie ended up in the Emergency Room of the University of Wisconsin Hospital, put on oxygen and felt a little better.  However, when the doctor came to talk with her, he said that she was going to be admitted and intubated.  She was shocked when the doctor told her that she was not going to go home that day and that she was about to get a lot worse before she got better. She had tested positive for pneumonia and Covid-19.

After a few days, Jackie started to get worse. She spent about a week in Intermediate Care but was soon moved to the Covid Intensive Care Unit, intubated and put on a ventilator. She did not get better and she then underwent surgery to put her on an ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation), to provide respiratory support for her heart and lungs. It is life support for the very ill. At the same time she needed surgery to remove aneurysm from her leg. They did the surgery. She died during that surgery but was resuscitated and the aneurysm was temporarily stitched together.  By then her kidneys and liver began to not be performing well and she was put on dialysis for healing.

Jackie made little improvement though they doctors were seeing that her lungs were somewhat better.  On January 26 she had a tracheostomy hoping that they could remove the ECMO and put her on a ventilator.  That happened but by February 4^th she was put on the ECMO again since she was not breathing well on her own. This was also during a time that she had been diagnosed with an elevated and irregular heart rate and cardioversion took place. The month of February was a time where she had times of seemingly small improvements and times of setbacks. She was moved back and forth from the Covid ICU to the regular ICU because intermediary care beds were full.

On March 3^rd Jackie was moved to Select Specialty Hospital, a long term acute care hospital in Madison. The University of Wisconsin Hospital had done all they could do for her. The inflammation from the pneumonia had improved, no infections were present though she still had fever but a consistent white blood count. She was still on the ventilator. By March 5^th the doctors did some evaluations of her cognitive skills and found no abnormalities. Her family was able to see her, communicate with her and she could “visit” with her granddaughter via Facetime! A formidable time – but it was beginning to appear that she was going to be alive to see her soon-to-be-born grandson!

For the next two weeks she began to have liquids and was able to walk, with assistance some short distances. By April 7^th she was moved to the University of Wisconsin Rehabilitation Center hoping for a release date in the next two weeks.

Jackie went home on April 16^th.  Four months later she no longer needs someone to provide care all of the time. She is on constant oxygen but is not using a walker now but has a walking stick!  She can walk to her car, go to the grocery store, and is walking a fourth mile on the walking track at the local high school. She has had both the covid vaccine shots as have all of her immediate family and she doesn’t want to live in uncertainty and fear. She wears her mask and doesn’t go to crowded places except with family and friends.

The first week of September she will be having the procedure to correct the surgery not completed for the aneurysm. When that is accomplished, she still faces about eighteen months before we will know the true effects of her recovery. This is what it is like, day-to-day living with Covid-19.  She wants you to know.

Special thanks from me to her son and daughter-in-law for sharing nearly every day, her condition through the Caring Bridges website – a site where friends and family can follow the situation of someone they love.  If you have an extra dollar or two – they willingly accept donations. It is a wonderful site!

Jackie – I love you and will see you soon!  Continue to get better, follow directions, and hopefully soon the process will be complete.  …Jackie doesn’t like process and sometimes wants to skip a few steps.  She and I have had this conversation for thirty years!