Dr. Kalil Masri, 53, is a cardiologist and critical care specialist at a hospital in Michigan, where he treated hundreds of COVID-19 patients during the early months of the pandemic, before vaccines were available. In July 2020, he tested positive for the virus. His symptoms were initially mild enough for him to quarantine at home, but they soon got worse. Here is his seven-and-a-half-month journey to near-death and back.

A Downward Spiral

“At first, it wasn’t really that bad. Just some malaise,” Masri said. “But as the days passed, I got more short of breath, with a dry cough, and then eventually, I couldn’t breathe well at all.” After becoming disoriented, he was admitted to a nearby hospital, where multiple life-threatening conditions caused his health to deteriorate even further. These included, among others:

• Acute respiratory distress syndrome 
• COVID pneumonia 
• Superimposed H influenza 
• Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, a serious bacterial infection 
• Kidney failure requiring temporary dialysis 
• Disseminated intravascular coagulation, a condition that disrupts blood flow

“You name it, I got treated for it,” said Masri. “I think all the (experimental) COVID treatment drugs were tried on me.” Masri was intubated and placed on a ventilator, but his lung function continued to decline. In late September, after several weeks spent at two different hospitals, Masri was airlifted to Cleveland Clinic for a special treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a form of artificial life support for people with lung dysfunction and organ failure.

Journey Back from the Brink

“When he came here, he was in full acute respiratory failure associated with COVID,” explained cardiac surgeon James Yun, MD, PhD, who treated Masri at Cleveland Clinic. “He was quite ill, unstable, and not yet a candidate for transplant.” Yun immediately placed Masri on ECMO, which continuously pumped out his blood, purified it, then pumped it back into his body. 

After several months of treatment, Masri showed enough improvement to be placed on the transplant list. When a deceased donor with two viable lungs was identified in January 2021, Masri underwent a nine-hour double-lung transplant surgery. Although post-op complications required him to stay on a ventilator a while longer, he was finally able to go home.

Yun credits Masri’s recovery to the tireless efforts of the intensive care unit team at Cleveland Clinic, including physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pulmonologists, and other specialists who literally brought Masri back from the brink of death on several occasions. Masri credits his wife and children, whose photos graced the wall of his hospital room. “Every day, I’d wake up and look at their pictures,” he said. “That gave me the drive to just keep going. I wanted to see my family again.”

Lessons from Limbo

Dr. Masri knows how close he came to death and how fortunate he is to have survived. He hopes his experience encourages those who are not vaccinated to rethink their options.

“If a vaccine had been available for me, maybe if I had gotten COVID, I would have had milder symptoms and not ended up needing a transplant,” he said. “I want people to take this virus seriously…If my illness helps other people (get vaccinated), then there is a purpose for me being alive today.”

*Cleveland Clinic. (2021). Doctor Hospitalized 230 Days From COVID-19 Receives Double-Lung Transplant. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/patient-stories/531-doctor-hospitalized-230-days-from-covid-19-receives-double-lung-transplant?fbclid=IwAR0rtTxorUhm3AXhwVQ7XIqePqMfUBCw6U4KmWSEjrjo6hW2erLQHukt_mE

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