Karla's COVID Success Story | Patient Testimonial Video Production Louisville

Karla lost two months of her life to COVID — a coma, a ventilator, failing kidneys. This film tells the story of what came next: 56 days at Kindred Hospital, a care team that became her family, and the day her therapist took the oxygen away and Karla asked, "Can I go home now?"

Produced for Kindred, this patient recovery story weaves Karla's voice with her husband's and her clinicians' to show what long-term acute care actually does for the patients who need it most. We handled the interviews with the sensitivity the story demanded — and the result is the kind of patient testimonial that tells a health system's story better than any brand message could. I am Karla, and I'm a COVID survivor, and I'm here to stay.

About This Project
Client: Kindred Healthcare
Type: Patient Recovery Story, Healthcare Testimonial
Location: Louisville, KY
Services: Patient testimonial production, clinical interviews, sensitive-subject field production, editing

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Video Transcript:

My name is Karla Taylor-Bauman. In April, I was diagnosed with COVID — April 2nd. The last day that I actually remember being healthy, I came home from work, and all I remember having was a really bad headache. That's the last time that I consciously remember.

I took the next day off work, and I took Karla to her doctor, her primary care physician. She could not breathe at this point. It was getting pretty bad. The first seven days, each day things were sounding worse and worse. Hearing about this virus going around, hearing about COVID, the way it was spreading — it's one of these things where you think, "That's never going to happen to me. Is this a bad dream that I'm just going to wake up from? This can't be happening."

I don't remember the next morning. I don't remember Jovan rushing me to the emergency satellite hospital near our house. I don't remember him taking me to my principal doctor. I don't remember any of that. It's like that section of my life is just completely gone. The next thing that I remember is actually waking up at Kindred Hospital, and I just didn't understand what was happening. The nurses had to calm me down and say, "Hey, you're in the hospital. You've been in a coma for a while, and you're just waking up. It's okay."

Karla came to us after being in the acute care setting for almost 60 days. She came to us on a ventilator with a trach, and she was minimally responsive. Her kidneys were failing. However, staff knowing how to take care of patients who are on ventilators in that situation, they continued to reassure her — where she was, what happened, that her family loves her, they've been checking on her, and before long, she's going home. That's the goal.

Karla was great to work with. We worked on communication skills. Physical and occupational therapy worked on basic strength exercises, bed mobility, ADLs, all of that. We did some pretty intensive swallow therapy, and she was so incredibly motivated. She progressed so quickly. I started working with her and taking her oxygen down every day, and on the last day, I took it completely off, and that's when Karla kind of woke up. I said, "Karla, you don't need this anymore. You're doing great without oxygen." And she just looked at me and said, "Thank you so much. Can I go home now?"

We got her eating a normal diet again. We got her a whole lot stronger than what she was. She was meeting all of her goals. She was so incredibly motivated to go home and see her family, and her family was a huge support too, so it was really great to see.

My range of motion, learning how to walk, and just coping with the thought that I couldn't see my family — the staff became my family. That was all I had for 56 days. And after a while, you just kind of depend on them, really — for a voice even, or a soft touch, or someone holding your hand telling you it's going to be okay. It was at that point that it truly hit me that I was truly alive, and I was on my way home. It was so emotional.

Seeing her see her family for the first time was just incredibly emotional. They were the greatest support. They were always on FaceTime with her. They were always motivating her through therapy sessions. It was just incredible to see her actually get to go home and live at home with her family.

If I could have her nursing staff and the doctors from Kindred in front of me right now, I would just tell them all: thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

She's just improving every day, little bit by little bit. I'm getting there, and I will get there. I started last week going to sit outside in the sun. It just fills me up with joy. I am Karla, and I'm a COVID survivor, and I'm here to stay.