PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) – A woman hopes her story will save lives.
She’s an athlete with a congenital heart disease who survived COVID-19. But the coronavirus not only sickened her, she almost died and had a miscarriage.
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For years, Molly Burdick has been inspiring others to overcome obstacles, just like she did.
Born with multiple heart defects, she stays in good shape, doing things like rock climbing.
Despite being in top health, the senior Nike product manager knew early on in the pandemic to be safe.
“Having congenital heart disease, I had already started social distancing the day before. So basically not going to the office, not hanging out with friends or family, just being really cautious,” Burdick said.
She made one trip to the pharmacy to get much-needed thyroid meds.
“Five days later, I ended up getting really sick,” Burdick said.
She felt strong chills that led to uncontrollable shaking, a racing heartbeat and shallow breaths.
“And that’s when I realized, I’m really sick. I still have this fever. Something’s wrong, I’m in trouble,” she said.
Burdick had COVID-19. For 18 days, she stayed home and reached out to doctors with virtual meetings about every other day.
“This attacks your lungs, it attacks your heart, your digestive tract as well. I had really bad digestive issues from this and you’re exhausted all the time,” she said. “To me, I knew that not surviving this – it wasn’t an option and I had to fight it.”
Then came another fight: a pregnancy.
“They think that potentially while I was sick, while my body was fighting this virus, when I got pregnant, rather than that egg going to my uterus, it stayed in my fallopian tube and so that can’t hold life,” Burdick said.
Her fallopian tube ruptured.
“I almost died,” she said.
Doctors did emergency surgery, and though Burdick lost the pregnancy, they saved her life.
“If I can help save one person’s life by letting them know this is more than just a virus, this is something that could cause a miscarriage,” she said. “I’m very lucky where I have a son and I have husband and I have a family. There are a lot of folks who could go through this and after their surgery and after their miscarriage, they may not be able to have a family. So this virus can do a whole lot more than people realize.”
Even though Burdick has an underlying medical condition, she doesn’t think that’s why she got the virus and got so sick from it.
She’s urging everyone to be safe, to keep others from going through what she did.