LANSING, Mich. — It was a special day at Sparrow Hospital on Saturday when a 55-year-old recovering COVID-19 patient got hitched to his longtime girlfriend.
The groom Devlyn Kuehl has contracted COVID-19 twice and has been in the hospital since last August, putting the couple's wedding plans on hold. Until Sparrow threw the pair their own wedding right inside the hospital.
"We’ve been trying to get married for two years but because of COVID-19 we had to keep postponing and since I’ve been in the hospital we figured we better just get married," said Devlyn Kuehl.
Devlyn and Laurie, his new bride, have been together for about three and a half years. They met when Devlyn was a patient at Laurie's office. The two decided to get married just earlier this week, at Sparrow Specialty Hospital.
“Sparrow Specialty Hospital is a long term acute care hospital we’re a hospital within a hospital and we serve the community," said Tina Gross who serves as the president and chief nursing officer of Sparrow Specialty Hospital.
Patient care technicians served as the flower girls and ring bearer, and Devlyn's own doctor even attended the ceremony.
“When he came to us he was quite sick as you can see and we talked about his COVID and he had a lot of other things happen to him over the course but they’ve been great and always positive and that’s why we wanted to do something special for them," said Dr. Kristy Beckholt, Devlyn's physician.
Devlyn was unvaccinated when he contracted COVID-19 for the second time. His message for others is to get the vaccine.
“Go ahead and get it, because if you get it you won’t be as sick. It’s not fun, I’ve been on a ventilator, I’ve been just out of my mind not knowing where I was at, didn’t recognize anybody. It was miserable," he said.
Laurie encourages everyone to seize the day.
“Do what you want to do, don’t wait," she said. "We’ve been waiting because we thought we wanted a big wedding and we wanted everyone to be a part of it but obviously every time we tried to plan things, things didn’t go the way we wanted them to so it’s just important that we’re together and that’s it."
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