Moving forward

Editor’s Note: This is the third of a three-part series focusing on the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lincoln Parish.

Linzie Hebert still cries when she talks about her dad. Johnathan Brantley is just ready to find normal. Ricky Edmiston knows prayer helped pull him through.

Hebert, Brantley and Edmiston are all among the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lincoln Parish.

Within about two hours on April 10, 2020, Brantley’s father and a close friend succumbed to COVID. John Brantley and Patrick McDonald were among the first Lincoln Parish residents to die from the respiratory virus. A week later, Brantley’s cousin, Sherry Roberts, of Ruston, also died of COVID.

Hebert’s grandfather, O.L. Brewster, died of COVID on Dec. 17; her father, Bobby Ledford, died on Jan. 13, 2021.

Edmiston spent five days in a Monroe hospital. When he went home, 20 pounds lighter but free of COVID, he was told he’d gotten to the emergency room just in time.

There are thousands of local COVID-19 victims: Direct victims like Edmiston, one of the 3,277 parish residents who’ve had COVID, and secondary victims, like Hebert and Brantley, who’ve lost loved ones to the virus.

To date, 84 parish residents have officially died from COVID-19, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

Brantley: Still no closure

As the first anniversary of John Brantley’s death nears, his son still finds no closure.

COVID restrictions kept the Brantley family from attending John Brantley’s burial.

“It was hard. It’s still bothering me,” Johnathan Brantley said. “I have to relive it every day, every time I watch the news, you see COVID numbers, COVID numbers.”

John Brantley was admitted to Northern Louisiana Medical Center on April 7. Lincoln Parish had 22 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus that day, LDH records show.

But no parish resident had died.

“When I took him to the hospital, I never thought it would be the last time I’d see him,” said Johnathan Brantley, who lives in rural Lincoln Parish. “The next time I saw him was two weeks later in the casket.”

The younger Brantley said he thought his father was dehydrated from diarrhea. That had happened before. The elder Brantley had no breathing problems, often the tell-tale symptom of COVID.

“I thought he had a stomach virus,” Johnathan Brantley said.

But that wasn’t the case.

“Nobody still knows how he actually got the virus. That’s still a mystery that bothers me to this day,” Johnathan Brantley said.

The elder Brantley was transferred to the Veterans’ Administration Hospital at his own request. Shortly after 8:45 p.m. on Friday — it was April 10 — father and son spoke on the phone.

Johnathan Brantley called his father to tell him Patrick McDonald had died. McDonald, also of Ruston, had been on a ventilator; John Brantely never was. His medical team was trying to get his oxygen levels up high enough to send him home.

“He was excited about coming home,” Johnathan Brantley said. “All of a sudden (the hospital) called and said he went into cardiac arrest.”

On April 13, Lincoln Parish Director of Homeland Security Kip Franklin confirmed that two parish residents had died as a result of COVID-19.

The Brantley family had a wake and a funeral. Two hours after John Brantley was interred, his son was allowed to visit the gravesite.

Johnathan Brantley said he feels the pain of others who’ve lost loved ones.

“You never thought a pandemic like this would happen in America, kill so many people,” Johnathan Brantley said.

He cites the blues song “You’ve Got to Hurt Before You Heal” as where he is on his journey with COVID. He remains committed to his father’s memory.

“I loved him to death — literally,” Johnathan Brantley said.

Edmiston: In the nick of time

Edmiston

Ricky Edmiston wasn’t feeling well on July 2. He was achy and tired. On July 4, he was worse. On July 5, he had a COVID test at a local walk-in clinic.

By the next day, a Monday, he had a fever and a positive COVID diagnosis. That day, LDH recorded 353 confirmed cases of the virus in Lincoln Parish.

“My thoughts were ‘it’s just going to be aches, like the flu. I’ll feel like I do for a few days and it will be over.’ That’s not what happened,” Edmiston, of Choudrant, said.

His fever climbed to 103.8.

“I could still breathe fine. It was just the fever and aches,” he said.

On July 11, Edmiston’s wife took him to the emergency room at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe.

“What I remember in the ER was I had a blood gas of 53, which was supposed to be in the mid-90s,” he said.

Later Edmiston would learn he had been in respiratory failure.

During his hospitalization, Edmiston received Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral medication used in the treatment of COVID-19. He improved daily, though he continued to have no sense of taste or smell.

He Facetimed his wife, Lori, and on July 16, after his blood gas stayed in the mid-90s for 24 hours, Edmiston was discharged.

“I went home that Thursday fully believing I could go back to work on Monday.,” he said. “No. You’re just so exhausted.”

It was two more weeks before he went back to his job with the parish public school system.

His only long-term effect thus far: nerve damage in his feet.

“To this day, the bottom of my feet are numb,” Edmiston said.

Since his recovery, Edmiston’s donated convalescent plasma five times, but he no longer can now that he’s been fully vaccinated.

Edmiston said he wasn’t scared during his illness, but looking back and knowing what he knows now, he admits he would have been more concerned.

He said he doesn’t know how he contracted the virus. He’s just grateful for the care he received and the prayers of family and friends.

“I’m just so thankful for the prayers. It got me through COVID,” he said.

Hebert: Nothing will be the same

Ledford

Brewster

Linzie Hebert’s family has seen all of the faces of COVID.

The day after Thanksgiving, she got a call from her mother saying that Hebert’s 96-yearold grandmother had a fever and wasn’t feeling well.

They discovered one of her grandparents’ caregivers had tested positive for COVID.

“Within days, Mamaw and Papaw were both obviously very ill,” Hebert said.

The older couple’s four siblings stepped in to assume 24-hour care of their parents. But despite using the best personal protective measures they had, all four siblings and two of their spouses contracted the virus.

Her dad, Bobby Ledford, began feeling bad on Dec. 4. But he put up the family Christmas tree anyway. He knew his wife, Laurice, would like it.

Hebert’s 95-year-old grandfather, O.L. Brewster, was already hospitalized. He died Dec. 17, when Louisiana was in a holiday-season COVID spike.

On the day Brewster died, 2,536 Lincoln Parish residents had tested positive for COVID since the count began the preceding March 22. The local COVID death count stood at 64.

On Dec. 14, his 73rd birthday, Ledford was admitted to the hospital. On Christmas Eve, Ledford agreed to be put on a ventilator, and on Christmas night, he was airlifted by helicopter to Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport.

His family sat outside in 30-degree weather waiting for the helicopter to go by.

“And at 10:39, in the distance we saw it and waved and shouted our love and encouragement,” Hebert’s sister, Tonya, wrote in a Facebook post.

They posted a picture of Ledford in the hospital, lying on his stomach, tubes taped to his face, to show that COVID is raw and real.

“He battled for a month. It was the hardest month of our life,” Hebert said. “We thought we were going to turn a corner, then bam. They called the family in. It was just extremely hard to decide to let him go.”

“He fought so hard. He did not want to lose the battle. He had no intention of losing the battle,” she said.

But the medicine that would help one issue would exacerbate another one.

“We would rebound and go back, rebound and go back,” Hebert said.

Bobby Ledford never wanted to be a statistic. He wanted to continue to be a family-oriented guy who went to his grandkids’ soccer games and fished and cut hair for a living.

Ledford died on Jan. 13, 2021. That day, LDH reported 2,857 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Lincoln Parish and 76 confirmed deaths.

The next day, the number climbed to 77.

“I still don’t understand how something as stupid as a virus could change my life,” Hebert said. “I would never have thought we’d lose him to something we didn’t know the name of a year ago.”

“We’re a year later and you look around and life is returning to normal, but it will never be for us,” she said.

Hebert is pregnant with her and husband Jeremy’s fifth child. It’s a boy. His name is Bobby Jeremiah. Bobby, after the grandfather the baby will never know, and Jeremiah after one of Hebert’s favorite scriptures, Jeremiah 29:11.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”