For 20 days, Ryan Ragaza-Bourassa was relying on a ventilator at Spokane's Providence Sacred Heart to keep him alive as he battled the novel coronavirus.
Ragaza-Bourassa has no idea where or how he contracted the virus. Nearly dying at one point, he's now at home with his family after battling back and being released from the hospital earlier this week.
Doctors and nurses lined the hallway at Sacred Heart to celebrate the 45-year-old Spokane man's recovery against the virus, which has over 2.5 million cases worldwide as of April 24.
The husband and father of two sat down with KREM's Mark Hanrahan to talk about his fight against the deadly virus.
"I'm definitely grateful to be here. It was a pretty traumatic experience, so yes, definitely glad to be here," Ragaza-Bourassa said.
Ragaza-Bourassa's fight with COVID-19 started back in mid-March. He said he just felt tired at first, but then developed a fever that lasted about three days.
Then, he developed a cough that wouldn't stop. At one point, it kept him from sleeping, he said.
"I just started coughing for about five days straight before I got admitted to the hospital. I called my doctor, he said, 'Don't come in, we'll give you a prescription for some cough suppressant with some codine.'," Ragaza-Bourassa said.
But that didn't help his cough, which led to the start of his time in the hospital.
"It didn't work. It didn't help, and that's when, the following Friday, I went to Urgent Care to get that cough cleared up and figured out. They sent me to the ER and that was the beginning of the ordeal," he said.
Within 24 hours of his arrival in the ER, Ragaza-Bourassa said he was placed in a medically-induced coma, his breathing supported by a ventilator.
He still remembers talking to his family for the last time before he was taken to the Intensive Care Unit.
"That was kind of the scariest part, and that's what I've been trying to cope with, is that part of the experience. That I may never see them again and only having that short period of time to talk to them before I went on the ventilator," he said.
Ragaza-Bourassa said he wasn't officially diagnosed with COVID-19 until he got tested in the ER, with results coming back four days later.
While he has since made it out of the hospital and is reunited with his family at their home, Ragaza-Bourassa said it was a miracle he survived.
"I think the word 'miracle' pretty much summed it up, that I was right there knocking on the door," he said. "It was going to be within that 1 percent, 2 percent chance. They would never give me a percentage, maybe just for my mental stability, but yeah, it wasn't looking good."
But little-by-little, Ragaza-Bourassa's condition began improving, although no part of the fight was easy.
The only contact he was allowed to have with his family came through phone calls or video chat.
Along with not being able to see his family, one of the toughest parts of the recovery was his 20 days on a ventilator, he said.
"There were times I just wanted to give up. I mean, just the breathing, the ventilator. I just thought I could only fight for so long, but then I'd just think about my family, just getting that extra strength to keep on battling, hopefully it was for the best," he said. "And it was, but there were times where I though I couldn't do it. Somehow, someway, I made it through."
By the time he was discharged, Ragaza-Bourassa was in the hospital for about a month.
When he returned home, his neighbors lined he street, holding signs and cheering.
To him, it was a big moment in his fight against the coronavirus.
"That was definitely a big moment. I got to see them again, because truthfully, I wasn't expecting to be around," Ragaza-Bourassa said. "That was a pretty amazing experience, to get back and hold [his family] in my arms and give them a big hug."