Alisa White, a 61-year-old grandmother of 11 from the hamlet of Wyandanch in Long Island, New York, is being called a “walking miracle” by doctors after she survived COVID-19, several surgeries and other ailments over the past year.
About six months ago, White was a Huntington Hospital patient, who’d been placed in a medically induced coma and given a 10 percent chance of survival.
On Tuesday, July 13, White returned to the hospital and reunited with some of the people who saved her life, CBS2 reported.
“I really thank you. Thank you very much for saving my life. How many times I could have died? So many times I could have died,” said White, a mother of six.
When White was admitted on Jan. 6, she was recovering from a month-long bout of COVID-19 and had been transferred from South Shore University Hospital. She was also suffering from pancreatitis, which doctors said was a complication of the virus. White’s family said other hospitals had given up on her until she met Dr. Demetrio Tzimas and Dr. Anthony Armetta.
Tzimas, a gastroenterologist, and Armetta, an interventional radiologist, performed a procedure called a cyst-gastrotomy to remove the pancreatic tissue impacted by the infection.
“Unfortunately she had such bad pancreatitis, most of her pancreas died, and she had a dead organ in her abdomen,” Tzimas said.
Over the course of six months, eight surgeries were performed on White to remove the tissue and she was left with just a tiny fraction of the organ that a person can live with.
“She’s really a walking miracle,” Tzimas said.
Most of White’s mobility has returned and she is back at home looking forward to returning to her favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse. Doctors presented her with a gift card for the restaurant on Tuesday.
“COVID and the pancreatitis took everything from me,” White said in the news release. “But thanks to Dr. Tzimas and his team, I’ve made a remarkable recovery. I owe my life to him – I wouldn’t be here without him.”
