Courtesy Tommy Archuleta
New Mexico reported more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on Oct. 30. Tommy Archuleta was one of them.
A licensed mental health counselor, as well as a licensed drug and alcohol counselor who works for the New Mexico Corrections Department at the state Penitentiary, Archuleta was receiving daily screenings and COVID-19 tests every other week through his job. By the time he received his results for his most recent test, he had been sick at home for five days.
His symptoms began with a "really" sore throat. Soon, he was bed-ridden with fatigue, chills and incessant headache. "The flu symptoms look a lot like COVID symptoms, so I didn't know if I had the flu or COVID, but I was able to weather the harshest symptoms," he says. But when dizziness set in, having by then received a positive diagnosis, he became concerned and called an ambulance to Presbyterian Medical Center in Santa Fe where he was tested again—this time rapidly.
"I just wanted to get care," Archuleta says, "because once I realized it was COVID, then I could start the process of trying to find out what severity level I was experiencing and what I was looking at."
The emergency room doctor in Santa Fe who treated Archuleta found him a bed at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho and he was transported there Halloween evening.
Archuleta, 55, says he has no pre-existing conditions and keeps in good shape as a mountain biker but, as a former smoker, knew he could still be at risk. He was reassured at the Rio Rancho hospital, however, that he had a "far less severe strain than the other people on that unit that I was on." On that unit, he says, "there were people definitely on ventilators and fighting for their lives." Archuleta received a liter of oxygen in the evening, responded well and was released on Nov. 2.
Archuleta knew he was at risk for contracting COVID-19 given his work as a counselor in the state prison system, where close quarters have led to outbreaks at facilities across the state; he had been teaching a psycho-educational class to approximately 20 inmates before he fell ill. The Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe currently reports 69 inmate cases and Corrections Department spokesman Eric Harrison says that facility to date has had 52 staff members who tested positive, which includes corrections offices, staff, contractors, educators and administrators. Of those, he says, 47 remain positive and five have recovered.
Fortunately, Archuleta is on the mend. He was sent home with a 10-day course of the steroid treatment dexamethasone and has also been using the breath work he already practices with clients, along with yoga, to remain focused.
"There's a hyper vigilance that comes in with trauma," Archuleta says. "I don't know how traumatized I've been, but I've certainly been awakened."
Part of that awakening is the recognition that Archuleta likely transmitted COVID-19 to his 87-year-old father with whom he lives in Cochiti Lake. As soon as he knew he was sick, he became concerned his father also had contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. He had, in fact, also called an ambulance for his father on Halloween night, which took him to Bernalillo County. His father was released that evening, though, as he was not yet exhibiting symptoms.
After Archuleta returned home on Nov. 2, he began to monitor both his and his father's oxygen levels. He could already see, he said, his father's condition changing and, by Nov. 4, his father also had chills and a fever. He was then admitted into Presbyterian Medical in Albuquerque, where he would remain for approximately a week, receiving the antiviral medication Remdesivir, plasma and other treatments. When SFR spoke with Archuleta on Nov. 11, he was preparing for the hospital to send his father home, where Archuleta will now take care of him—with the help of home healthcare aides. Archuleta plans to return to work himself when he's fully recovered. He knows he will need the help.
While Archuleta doesn't know what his father's recovery will look like, he's not unprepared for what comes next.
"I don't have a big family," he says. "When my mom died in '13, I was already in place helping him with her care, and so ushering her out. And when it was just him and I, it seemed clear that my next job was to usher him out in dignity and in honor. And so, when this hit me, and I saw that it was hitting him, there's a certain acceptance that you just sort of roll into. I think that's what resilience guides us toward; acceptance doesn't mean agreement—you just kind of find yourself finding stores of strength and resilience to continue on. That's what life is about: accepting the change, not necessarily agreeing with it."
In keeping with his background as a counselor, Archuleta says he would like to see and participate in some type of online forum for COVID-19 survivors, "where we could come together and share our strength," he said, noting the need for connection during such an isolating time.
As he discusses the need for resilience, Archuleta references the word "trudge." In contemporary usage, he notes, "It's lost some of its meaning, but its oldest and more stalwart meaning is that you walk with purpose."
Archuleta's musing on the word trudge follows suit from his other endeavor as an accomplished poet. He's currently finishing a manuscript titled Susto, which is Spanish for fright. One piece from the collection, "Remedio : Ocotillo (Candlewood)" was featured by the Academy of American Poets in its Poem-a-Day series last March (poets.org/poem/remedio-ocotillo-candlewood), and his work has been published by numerous other prestigious literary outlets.
"It's been born from grief from the loss of my mother," Archuleta says of the manuscript, "but it started to take on a lot of different meaning when COVID hit; it cast a completely different light on the work. I mean, COVID has changed everything."
