isa Hardin just finished the fight of her life. In fact, the fight was for her life.
"I call it my plague that I had, because I was so sick," she said.
Friday, April 10, Hardin was rushed to the hospital. She had a fever of more than 103 degrees. The nurse from the midlands tested positive for COVID-19.
She was separated from her family when she developed Bilateral Viral Pneumonia.
"It hurt so bad that years would drip from my eyes every deep breath," she said.
She was not eligible for two trial drugs. Preexisting health conditions had to do with the first trial. The second trial, she said, she missed by three hours.
Her doctor, Dr. Divya Ahuja, specialist in infectious diseases at Prisma Health, recommended a plasma transfusion, which takes antibodies found in convalescent plasma from patients who've recovered from COVID-19 and puts it in her system.
"I told him, 'Absolutely, go right ahead,'" she said.
On Easter Sunday, Ahuja came to her with good news.
"He said, 'We have a donor for you,' and, boy, I really needed to hear that then because that day I felt in my heart that I was giving out, I really did, I thought, 'I can't keep fighting.'"
The plasma came from a donor in Chattanooga, TN. She said when she received the antibodies, it felt like lightning in her body. She also described it as an army.
"When I got them it started fighting for me very, very quickly," she said.
Dr. Robert Rainer, medical director at The Blood Connection said antibodies work to level the playing field.
"The virus is a sprinter," he said. "It runs a 100-yard dash really fast and what we're able to do with the antibodies is take someone's immune system, so it gives that person a 50-yard head start."
Rainer said antibodies aren't the answer for everyone, but research from other viruses indicates it can help reduce impact. Antibodies were also used to help fight Ebola.
Three days later, Hardin was out of the hospital.
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