STATENVILLE — Alberto Castanon’s oxygen meter reads 100. 

It’s been months since he hit that number.

Sitting in a wheelchair, the living room inside his home feels foreign. Castanon, 51, was released from the hospital not 24 hours before this interview. He has not seen the inside of his house for nearly three months.

A light drizzle falls outside, but the farmworker remains seated next to a refrigerator and a box containing fresh apples and a watermelon. Coiled near the box lays a section of his breathing tube and the oxygen tank ensuring his breaths remain steady.

Breathing remains a challenge for Castanon who said his lungs remain weak and rehabbing them is a priority for his recovery from COVID-19.

“As long as I’m sitting, I’m OK,” he said. “I can’t stand more than three minutes because I’m tired. I feel tired, so I gotta sit.”

Oxygen is a necessity, and a man from a medical supplies company has come to replace the tank with a new one. He swaps the two, shows Castanon’s family how to use it and gets a signature.

Although Castanon does not belong to the “vulnerable” age group of 55 or older, he’s diabetic, making him more at risk to the virus.

Diabetes robbed him of his vision in January 2019. He was blind in both eyes for nearly eight months before vision returned to his left eye, according to Leo Castanon-Landaverde, his daughter.

Less than a year after regaining sight in one eye, he contracted COVID-19 in May. Prior to getting infected with the virus, he was a contracted farmworker picking whatever was in season at the farm.

Castanon recalled giving a fellow farmworker a ride to a local health clinic to get a COVID-19 test and it came back positive. He didn’t pay much mind to it as the two rode back from work together every day, and assumed his colleague was fine.

A few days later, he received a call from the man saying he tested positive, and a few days after that, Castanon began to feel ill himself. He lost his appetite and began quarantining assuming he too was COVID-19 positive.

His state worsened after a week, and his family called an ambulance. Upon arrival, medics informed him that his oxygen was at about 79% and dropping.

The ambulance would take him to South Georgia Medical Center where he would stay for nearly three months.

His time at SGMC started in the 5T wing, and after about a week, he deteriorated quickly as he went into cardiac arrest.

“The doctor told my daughter that I am going to die and they asked her if they could get permission to disconnect me (from life support) because I was going to die.”

Minutes later, his heart restarted.

“I was dead for 15-20 minutes,” he said.

It wasn’t his time to go.

After the incident, Castanon stayed in ICU the majority of his stay at SGMC as his state fluctuated. Nearly half of his time in the hospital was spent in a coma.

But, again, he rose.

The 51-year-old awoke after a month and a week but didn’t realize how long he had been unconscious.

“When he woke up he asked, ‘how long have I been here? Two or three weeks?’” his daughter recalled.

Known for his ability to remember any number or date, the coma left his memory hazy. He could only remember his daughter’s phone number for hospital staff to alert the family he was continuing to fight the virus.

Video calls with his family were the primary method of communication during his time at the hospital, but staff ultimately let his family take turns letting one person physically be in the room with him.

His fight continued until last Wednesday evening; at 7 p.m., Alberto Castanon was discharged from SGMC.

He said he left victorious.

Back home in Statenville, Castanon’s goals are to recover and regain his strength. Able to leave his wheelchair for a few minutes at a time, he requires a walker to stabilize him while upright.

Although Castanon’s oxygen meter read 100% throughout the interview, he still needs a breathing tube to maintain normal breathing. Without it, he feels like he cannot breathe, he said.

When he left the hospital, his oxygen tube fell out of his nose. His family did not realize it. His oxygen dropped to 85% in minutes. SGMC doctors told the family that they want his oxygen to not dip below 95%.

While the oxygen tube remains, he has two holes in his body from other tubes during his time at the hospital: one in his neck from the tracheal tube and the other in his abdomen from a feeding tube.

His daughter described Castanon as always active and moving around, but his fight with COVID-19 has changed his attitude for the immediate future.

“I’m scared to go outside,” Castanon said. “I don’t want to go.”

Until a vaccine is widely distributed, “I don’t want to go nowhere,” he said.

Once he recovers and feels comfortable returning to his normal life, Castanon looks forward to getting back into work in the fields. Last fall, he started planting and growing his own crops. He gave cucumbers a shot and was ready to use what he learned in 2019 to better his 2020 yield.

“His goal was to be able to do it this year,” Castanon-Landaverde said.

He’ll have to wait a while before he can use those lessons.