Corner Canyon Teacher Released From Hospital After Battling COVID-19
Oct 6, 2020, 10:23 PM | Updated: Oct 7, 2020, 6:54 am
DRAPER, Utah – A Corner Canyon High School teacher has returned home after being hospitalized with COVID-19.
Charri Jensen’s students lovingly call her “Mama J,” and when word got out in mid-September that she had contracted COVID-19, her students started reaching out.
“Unbelievable,” is how Jensen described the love she has received during this time.
“They are my kids, my family and now they have been the biggest cheerleaders. And when I woke up in my (hospital) room, it was just filled with notes and cards,” she said. “I think that’s why I’ve done so well. It’s because I have had this group of people praying and cheering for me.”
Corner Canyon High School Teacher lovingly known as "Mama J" is home from the hospital after a stay for Covid-19. Tonight on @KSL5TV News at 10, hear what she would like to tell all of us about the sickness and how she feels about the President's comments on Covid-19 yesterday. pic.twitter.com/os5OF84kk0
— Debbie Worthen (@DebbieWorthen) October 7, 2020
It’s been a tough road. And, even as she talked Tuesday, she did so with a breathing tube.
It will be weeks before she feels “normal” again, and months before doctors anticipate she’ll be back in the classroom. That is if Corner Canyon goes back to the classroom.
When Jensen was tested for COVID-19, she felt like she had a cold. But a coworker had tested positive, so she went in to get a test done, just to be sure.
At first, she said her symptoms weren’t severe and she thought the next two weeks would be filled with games and fun, family time. Then her condition deteriorated.
“I have never been this sick before in my life,” she said. When she finally went to the hospital at the advice of her family, she was struggling to breathe.
Doctors admitted her and intubated her. She was out for eight days — something that still hard for her to believe.
“I woke up, I thought I had been out for 24 hours. Talesha was like, ‘No mom, you’ve been out for eight days.'”
The following days were rough.
“It was really really hard. I couldn’t talk,” Jensen said. “I couldn’t move. Everything was just a blur.”
Her advice to everyone was to respect COVID.
“We’re not in a world of colds or flus. Get tested,” she said. “Don’t just assume it’s a cold. Go get tested and then make sure that you listen to your body and keep up with what’s going on.”
Jensen said she’s anxious to get back to her students. But now she has a different perspective on the pandemic and what it is capable of doing.
“I’m one of the lucky ones that beat this monster but there are people out there that didn’t win,” she said.