JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Saturday marks one year since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Clay County.
Since then, the county has documented roughly 17,000 cases, resulting in over 300 deaths.
Noah Battle Sr., a Marine Corps veteran, was Clay County’s first resident to be diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 13, 2020. His wife, Patricia, a Navy veteran, was diagnosed the next day.
News4Jax has been following the Battles for close to a year. Both of them are long-haulers, a term public health experts have used to describe patients whose symptoms last a long time.
“I wear the scars every day because I suffer from it, but I am grateful to be here,” Battle said.
But the father of four, who retired from the U.S. Postal Service after 37 years, is no stranger to a fight, in part because of his military service. That came in handy during the 47 days he spent in a hospital, 19 of them in a medically induced coma.
“Life is beautiful,” Battle said. “I am unable walk without a cane, I still have issues breathing, I have no feeling in (my) thigh still, I still have neuropathy in my hands and feet, I still have the ringing going on, but I am alive.”
Battle doesn’t recall being diagnosed with COVID-19 because he was unconscious, but his wife vividly remembers how the news was delivered to her family.
“Someone in the room yelled out, ‘He’s got the coronavirus!’ and that’s how they told us. That’s how we found out,” recalled Patricia Battle.
Despite initially having no symptoms, she was diagnosed the next day.
“No fever, no chills, no aches, no nothing,” she said. “(Later) I got this pain…in my stomach on my belly. About two months ago, I was diagnosed with COVID-related fibromyalgia.”
The deadly disease caused by novel coronavirus also took Patricia Battle’s mother two months into the pandemic. She said they never got a chance to said goodbye.
“She was a resident of the nursing home,” she said. “She pretty much didn’t stand a chance, she was 96.”
But despite everything they’ve been through over the past year, the Battles have a lot to be thankful for. For one, they’ve both gotten the vaccine. And they’re expecting a grandchild.
So what’s next?
“Continue to live,” Noah Battle said. “Continue to make each other happy.”