Lexington mother reflects on her complicated battle with COVID-19

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – As data continues to show progress being made in the fight against the coronavirus, a Lexington mother reflects on her own complicated battle and says she’s grateful she survived.

“It could have turned out very differently and for that I give thanks each and every day,” Shannox Cox said.

Cox is a mother of three and a Kindergarten teacher. She says she contracted COVID-19 last fall and didn’t know it.

“The week that everything happened, it was our Fall Break week,” Cox recalled. “So what that means is I was going to be coming for 3 days and then those last 2 days, everybody was out for fall break.”

But that Monday, Cox felt a little bit of pain in her right arm.

“I explained to my husband what I was feeling, he was like, ‘oh, you need to go to the doctor,’” Cox said. “I said, ‘no, you know what – we have 3 days this week.’”

Cox tried to rationalize by saying it’ll be more work trying to find a substitute, but the excuses continued the next day.

“So here comes Tuesday. I got up and noticed there’s swelling in my right arm – not bad, it was just puffy compared to the other arm,” Cox said. “I thought maybe I just slept on it wrong.”

The final straw came Wednesday morning.

“As I’m getting in my shower and getting ready for school, even lifting my arm to wash and rinse my hair, tears were streaming down my face,” Cox said. “It hurt so bad.”

Cox went to the ER at Fayette Surgical Associates where she found out she had the coronavirus, and it created blood clots in her right arm all the way up to her chest.

“The kind of clot she had certainly could have been life-threatening if that clot were to break off,” Dr. Nick Abedi, vascular surgeon, said. “It is such a large clot it would have shot into the heart and spread into the lungs.”

With the help of new vacuum-like technology called the Penumbra Indigo System Lightning 12, of which Abedi says he was the first in Kentucky to use, the large clots were removed.

Looking back, Cox says she should have put her health first. She often thinks only of her kids and her husband, who has two underlying health conditions.

Those people you’re caring for, they need you here,” Cox said. “I still have some work to do here, so yes!”