‘Miraculous… unbelievable’

Nan Wandrey is convinced she was just inches away from death.
While being treated for COVID-19 in two hospitals, Wandrey, 62, suffered a double lung collapse just days apart, putting her “very close” to going on a ventilator. COVID quickly attacked both of her lungs.
“I knew if they vented me, I wouldn’t make it,” said Wandrey, who spent seven days at Owatonna hospital before being transferred to Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis for 51 days. She had not been vaccinated.
She was finally released on Feb. 8 and is now recovering at her Owatonna home. Upon being discharged from Abbott, she was given strict instructions from medical staff: “We never want to see you again.”
What convinces Wandrey even more that she was near death is when doctors at Abbott told her they had never seen anyone survive from a double lung collapse. “They were surprised that I survived,” she said. “It’s miraculous I survived. It’s unbelievable.”
After the first lung went down, Wandrey was about to come home when the second one collapsed a day later. Doctors placed a tube into her lung so she could breathe. “I was blessed that my lung didn’t collapse at home or in the car,” she said.
At the same time, Wandrey was battling COVID-19 in December, a childhood friend of hers from Medford was just a few doors down at the Owatonna hospital. “We were texting back and forth from our hospital beds,” she said. “They vented her and she just died. I couldn’t believe it because I thought she was stronger than me. It’s just so sad. It was hard to lose her.”
Suffering from COVID-19 and the subsequent hospital care hasn’t been easy for Wandrey. As a nurse for 41 years, she is used to caring for others. She retired last April after 23 years at the prison in Faribault. She was Minnesota’s first LPN working in corrections.
“It’s been horrible, especially for me,” Wandrey said. “I’m not the one that gets care; I’m the one that gives it.”
Wandrey said she was “really scared” when she became hospitalized with COVID. “When I was in Owatonna (hospital), the doctor told me it would get way worse. I coughed until I had black and blue marks.”
She is quick to attribute what led to her full recovery. “There is only one thing. My faith,” Wandrey said. “I prayed so long and I put it out there for others to pray for me.”
And others quickly came to her side. In December, a group of friends and church members led a prayer vigil for 14 days outside the Owatonna hospital. Wandrey belongs to two area churches: Trinity Lutheran in Medford and Redeemer Lutheran in Owatonna. They sang Christmas carols and prayed in the snow. The group swelled to 20 people on one of the nights.
Wandrey felt the prayer support.
“That meant everything to me,” she said. “That gave me the will to trust God that everything would be ok. It makes what you have to live through quite a bit easier. All the prayer warriors praying for me is why I made it.”
Because of her strong faith, Wandrey said she wasn’t really afraid. “If I would have died, I would make it into the next world,” she said. “I put it in God’s hands—you show me the way to go. We live forever.”
Wandrey is now relying on family members and others to help her recover at home. Friends and neighbors supply her with food, including homemade soups, hot dishes and even homemade tamales with Spanish rice.
“They are just wonderful,” Wandrey said of those helping her. “Within a week, I was already stronger,” she added.
She remains attached to oxygen, though her levels are retreating. In just one week, she went from 4 liters to 2 liters of oxygen. At one point, while in the hospital, she needed 11 liters of oxygen. She said she hopes to eventually get rid of the oxygen, but she has no idea how long it will be. “I’m heading in the right direction,” she said.
Before getting COVID, Wandrey went to St. Charles every weekend to help take care of an older brother who suffers from Agent Orange.
“I want to get better to help take care of my brothers,” Wandrey said, adding she has been a caregiver for many people over the years.
She is also anxious about getting back to caring for her father, Verlyn Cornelius, who is 95 years old. He also ended up with COVID-19 while she was hospitalized in Owatonna. He recovered within a week. Wandrey said it wasn’t until her father got the hospital bills that he realized he had been sick. 
Wandrey’s son and grandson, and her husband Brian, also had COVID-19 at about the same time. Wandrey had it the worst of anyone.
For now, Wandrey plans to take things “day by day and bit by bit.” She knows not to push it and, if she becomes tired, to simply stop.
“I’m really blessed. I thank God that I have my family here,” she said.