BUFFALO, N.Y. — During the interview, Craig Shaffer is seated on the back patio of his home on a sunny summer morning.
An oxygen tank sits at his side. Connected to it is a clear tube that snakes over his shoulder and loops over Shaffer’s ears and under his nose.
The oxygen is a constant companion. Shaffer’s tried weening himself off, but he gets light-headed and admits to fainting a few times. He’s slowly been putting back on some of the 70 pounds he lost while in the hospital.
But during the conversation, Shaffer’s responses are strong, quick and clear. He is sharp, at times funny, and he is convinced, “I would not be here …”
Shaffer would not be alive if it were not for a rarely used piece of medical technology.
The device is an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine. It’s a heart and lung bypass. It takes a patient’s blood out, filters it to remove carbon dioxide, adds oxygen, then returns it to the patient.
And for three weeks, it kept Shaffer from succumbing to COVID-19.
Before getting sick, Shaffer was the administrator at Newfane Rehabilitation and Health Center. The Niagara County nursing home has had a very difficult time with the coronavirus.
State health department data shows 21 residents have died there from COVID. Another seven deaths are classified as “presumed COVID.”
In mid-April, Shaffer wasn’t feeling well and stayed home sick. His condition quickly worsened.
On April 25, longtime girlfriend Cindy Cieslinski couldn’t reach Shaffer at his apartment. Worried, she drove over and knocked on his windows until he responded. Cieslinski all the while kept trying to reach Shaffer via FaceTime.
“When he answered the phone, he literally was gray looking and that’s when I was like, ‘OK, it’s time.’ And I called 911 and got the paramedics there,” said Cieslinski.
Arriving at South Buffalo Mercy Hospital, Shaffer was immediately tested for COVID. When the results came back positive, he was immediately transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital, which had been converted into a COVID-only facility.
At St. Joe’s, a quick examination found Shaffer’s blood pressure spiking and his oxygen levels dangerously low.
Shaffer recalls, “They told me, ‘There’s nothing else we can do to save your life. You need to get on the vent now. Open your mouth.’ They are wheeling me into the ICU, and it was lights out.”
Being on a ventilator requires the patient to be heavily sedated. That’s how Shaffer stayed for weeks. He remembers almost none of it.
That includes when his condition worsened and was transferred back to South Buffalo Mercy. Doctors there decided there was one option. While still hooked up to a ventilator, Shaffer was also put on an ECMO.
“It is the worst-of-the-worst COVID patients, when all the other options have been exhausted. It’s just to buy more time and give them a chance to recover,” said Dr. Harsh Jain, cardiac surgeon and surgical director of the ECMO program for Catholic Health.
Jain says Shaffer initially did improve and then his condition plateaued. It didn’t look good.
On May 8, Cieslinski was given rare access to the hospital’s COVID unit to visit Shaffer.
“They had let me know the day before on the 7th that he was so critically ill that there’s nothing left they could do for him,” Cieslinski said.
She knew it was the hospital compassionate way of allowing her to say her goodbyes, but Cieslinski refused to believe the end was near.
“I didn’t let myself go there. I stayed at a level of ‘No. He’s pulling through,’ ” she said.
And the following day, Shaffer slowly started to improve.
“That’s what ultimately saved my life and I was on (the ECMO) for 23 days. My lungs were filled with pudding-consistency mucus. It was very touch and go for a while there,” Shaffer said.
Weeks later, Shaffer opened his eyes. It took some time for him to emerge from the fog of being unconscious for so long.
During an iPad visit with Cieslinski, Shaffer asked what day it was.
It was June 14.
“And I immediately I just cried my eyes out. It just hit me like a ton of bricks that I had been out for over a month and a half,” Shaffer said.
In the days that followed, Shaffer was filled in on his COVID treatment and how the ECMO sustained him.
“They told essentially, the ECMO technology had saved my life because the ventilator wasn’t supporting me,” Shaffer said.
Catholic Health says just six COVID patients have been put on the ECMO. Four have survived.
Since Shaffer's release from the hospital, there have been lots of doctor’s appointments and heavy dose of pulmonary and physical rehab.
He admits to getting winded after short walks.
But after a spring spent in darkness, he’s enjoying a little summer sun on the patio. Shaffer’s also deeply thankful for the technology that rescued him and the care he received at St. Joe’s and South Buffalo Mercy.
“I will forever be grateful, and I look forward to the day when I can thank them in person,” he said.