A 95 year-old World War II veteran who managed to beat coronavirus against all odds is now speaking out to tell others how they too can beat COVID-19.
While appearing on “Fox and Friends First” on Friday, Bill Kelly credited listening to the instructions of doctor and a positive attitude for his recovery from the virus that has killed thousands of people all over the world. The Navy veteran from Oregon explained that his symptoms included feeling “quite tired” and not having an appetite.
“I had to force myself to eat and to get my strength up,” Kelly said. “I did get plenty of rest and I did obey the doctors and nurses requirements what to do and to do it with a positive attitude.”
“They mentioned to me a lot of this is psychological too in a person’s mind and to have a negative attitude about something, it does affect that,” added Kelly, whose underlying medical conditions include kidney disease, a congenital heart condition and high blood pressure.
When asked what his thoughts were while fighting COVID-19, the veteran said, “’Do what you are told, go to sleep and get rest and things will work out. Have a positive attitude and get with it.’”
Kelly’s story went viral last month after his 41 year-old granddaughter Rose Ayers-Etherington, posted about his diagnosis on Facebook, writing that he was “kicking it in the butt.”
“In his words, ‘I survived the foxholes of Guam, I can get through this [coronavirus] bull—-,’” she wrote. “He has strong mental resolve. He has seen tough times and knows how to get through them.”
In today’s interview, Ayers-Etherington recalled the experience of finding out Kelly had tested positive, saying that she first noticed he wasn’t feeling well on March 15.
“We all live together, there’s four generations in this house right now, I came home and I just noticed that he’d been in bed. He just didn’t want to get up,” Ayers-Etherington said. “He just didn’t look like he was feeling very well and I asked him how he was feeling and he was like, ‘You know I am just not feeling great.’”
“He was complaining of really bad body aches as well, his legs, his lower back, so I took his temperature, he had a low-grade temperature so I called his doctor, and they were like, ‘Yeah you better bring him in,’ so we did and it was kind of scary because they just took him and couldn’t be with him at all,” she added. “We just had to go home and wait to hear from the doctors.”
Ayers-Etherington said that doctors called her the very next day to say that he could be discharged.
“They were like, ‘OK we got his fever down, we think it’s some bug, some virus, nothing major, you can come get him,’” Ayers-Etherington said. “They were not going to test him and the only reason they did is because my husband is a MedEvac helicopter pilot and has been transporting COVID-19 patients so they were like, ‘We better test him just to make sure’ and lo and behold … he found out that he was positive.”
When asked how he is feeling now, the veteran said, “I feel fine, still a little tired.”
“I am gaining strength day by day, but other than that I’m coming along just fine,” he said.
This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.
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