CHARLESTON, S.C. — Louise Beal has always been a fighter. And over the last week and a half, she's needed all that fighting spirit to battle her toughest opponent: the coronavirus.
Beal, who's 81, was released from Trident Medical Center in Charleston Thursday, after an 11 day ordeal with the virus. She was greeted by applause from the medical staff as she was taken out in a wheelchair to her car.
"This sickness right here?" she said. "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy."
She had traveled from New York to South Carolina to see relatives. Then she got sick.
She was admitted to hospital, where her condition worsened. It got so bad, her daughter, Shenae Taylor, wasn't sure if her mom would make it.
"My mom started a couple a week ago telling us what to do in case of her demise, which really threw us for loop," Taylor said. "My mom's a fighter, so the fact that she had started to give up really scared us.
Then Beale got some inspiration.
"I thought about giving up," she said. "But then I dreamed about my parents and I said I don't let anything beat me. I'm not here for the COVID to beat me. I'm here to beat it."
Her children called her multiple times a day to encourage her too. "My son called me and said mom you're a tough old lady," Beale recalled. "Mommy, you can't give up yet."
She said the medical staff couldn't have been better.
"I call them miracle workers," Beale said. "Everybody was so wonderful to me. I appreciate everything you do. I thank you....I thank God for life."
