A mom of 4 who died of covid days after her husband makes a wish: 'Make sure my kids get vaccinated'
A few weeks ago, Lydia Rodriguez thought her body was strong enough to fight the coronavirus without the vaccine.
But after a week-long church camp, she and other members of her family tested positive for the coronavirus. By the time Rodriguez, 42, changed her mind and asked for the shot, it was too late, her doctor said. A ventilator awaited her, her cousin Dottie Jones told The Washington Post.
Out of options, the Galveston, Tex., mother of four, asked her family to make a promise: “Please make sure my kids get vaccinated,” Rodriguez, a piano teacher, told her sister during their last phone call.
Rodriguez died Monday — two weeks after her husband, Lawrence Rodriguez, 49, also died after coronavirus complications. The couple fought the virus from hospital beds just a few feet from one another in a Texas intensive care unit, Jones said.
“Lydia has never really believed in vaccines,” Jones, 55, told The Post. “She believed that she could handle everything on her own, that you didn’t really need medicine.”
A neonatal nurse, Jones was familiar with the serious effects covid-19 had on mothers and babies she treated at the Sugarland, Tex., hospital where she worked. She shared with Rodriguez how she had watched patient after patient be connected to a ventilator for weeks without much improvement.
Jones could have gone on and on. But her cousin’s silence spoke for itself, she said. “I knew she would never get vaccinated,” Jones told The Post. “I was very concerned.”
Rodriguez’s husband, who shared her anti-vaccine beliefs, also declined to get the shot. Three of their four children are eligible but have not yet received the vaccine, Jones said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ouple-declined-covid-19-vaccine-died-orphans/