GALLUP, N.M. – From a distance, the COVID-19 drive-up testing site at the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services Urgent Care Clinic resembled a car garage that offered quick oil changes. Vehicles that lined up at the main entrance went in to the metal garage where, in less than 10 minutes, two medical workers asked a series of questions and performed a nasal swab test on the driver.
“Make sure the information is correct,” registered medical assistant Cheryl Kee said and put a sticker with the driver’s basic information on the side mirror before performing the test.
The driver nodded in agreement and she removed the sticker from the mirror and pasted it on the driver’s records.
“Ready for your test?” Kee said with a smile in her eyes before inserting a 6-inch long swab into the driver’s nose cavities.
The driver grunted as Kee pushed in the swab for 15 seconds, rotating it several times to collect samples. When she was done with one nostril, she went for the other.
There was more grunting and discomfort but in less than 10 minutes, the ordeal was over and the driver was ready to go.
In fact, the test was faster than an oil change.
The medical assistants inserted the swabs in containers and sent them to the lab for testing. They provided standard written information to their patients and answered basic questions or referred them to the hospital for further evaluations.
The line moved fast. Then all of a sudden it got quiet and there were no more vehicles, so the medical workers took a break and sat on stools next to a heater, waiting for the next vehicle.
It all seemed routine that cold December morning, but it was not always like that.
Dressed in full protection gear that included a double mask, face shield, apron, gloves and ear warmers, Kee recalled that she started working at the testing site in the summer at the height of the pandemic in Gallup.
At the time, they were testing 80 to 170 people a day – just at her station.
It was unknown territory for a medical worker, and it was also her first assignment since she started working for Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services. She did not know what to expect, and she held on to her faith.
Only two years ago, Kee was in a hospital bed in Denver, Colorado, hoping for a new liver.
The mother of four adult children, Kee, who is 43 years old, suffered with depression in her late 30s and resorted to drinking alcohol to numb her pain.
“I was drinking 24/7 for six months,” Kee said. “I was drinking so heavily that I would pass out, get up with a hang over, and get another shot. Depression is real and it hurts.”
Kee, who grew up between Mexican Springs and Tohatchi and now lives in Twin Lakes, said there was a history of alcohol addiction in her family and that made her more prone to becoming addicted and developing complications. In less than two years since she started drinking heavily, her liver started to fail and she had to be hospitalized on a regular basis.
She recalled spending more than a year in and out of hospitals until she had to be hospitalized for a long, indefinite stay. At the time, her liver was no longer digesting her food or getting rid of toxic substances.
She had to go through blood transfusions, had severe stomach pain, and developed various internal infections. Her infections were so contagious, she said, she was only allowed to see her children and her then-husband.
She was told she needed a liver transplant to survive.
“The pain was so bad, I would cry like a baby,” she said. “I had a machine that administered narcotics. It was so painful, I was pressing the button every 30 minutes because it was the only way I could get rid of the pain. And I could not call a doctor or a nurse every 30 minutes to give me something.”
Growing up in the Mexican Springs area, Kee said she lived with her grandmother and her mother. Her father was an alcoholic and he would disappear for days or weeks at a time to drink with his friends.
She grew up the Navajo way, raising and grazing sheep with her grandmother. They had no running water but she has fond memories of her time with the elderly woman.
“My grandma knew her sheep; she knew every lamb,” Kee said. “I had to go to boarding school in Tohatchi because we didn’t have transportation and the roads were very bad.”
Kee was close to her grandmother. When the woman slipped on ice, broke her arm and developed paralysis on half of her body, Kee took a job at the Gallup nursing home where she was admitted so that she could take care of her. Her grandmother died shorty, but Kee was inspired to start a career in the medical field and became a registered medical assistant in 2005.
As she waited for a liver transplant at the hospital in Denver two years ago, Kee often thought of her grandmother and how she wanted to survive her own ordeal and live to see her own grandchildren grow up. One of her daughters was pregnant at the time, and she dreamed of becoming a grandmother herself.
Kee said she was running out of time when a donor was finally identified and she got ready for the transplant. But as she was being rushed in for surgery, her doctors had to cancel because the donor was at an early stage of cancer.
“They told me we don’t know how long it’s gonna be before we find another donor but you just gotta hang in there. It could take a month or two,” Kee recalled. “I only had 24 hours to live because they told me my labs were so low. I prayed. I prayed so hard.”
Good news came the next morning. There was another donor.
“I was happy,” she said. “I put that all in God’s hands, and they washed me and got me ready for surgery, and I told my children I was going in, and they told me we’ll see you when you get back.”
She said the surgery took more than 18 hours because an artery was accidentally cut.
“But I got a 20-year-old woman’s liver,” she said. “I’m just so blessed. ‘Til this day I can feel there is a spirit around me that protects me.”
Kee said growing up, both her parents had health and financial problems and she had a distant foster mother who lived in Maryland who wrote her letters and provided financial support. She gave her a pin of an angel that she kept and held a symbol of protection. Later in life, she was baptized, reassuring her faith, and through the hard times, she held on to her faith.
Kee talks to her patients about her own struggles and how she survived a transplant with only hours to live, and how she is now a grandmother and had developed a strong bond with her baby granddaughter.
“My immune system is a little weak, but I don’t think like that. I’m taking medication to assimilate the liver for life, but I enjoy what I do and I don’t think about the negativity,” Kee said. “I now see families losing family members left and right. They don’t have much hope. I speak to my patients about having hope and faith. That’s what’s keeping me going. I’ve forgiven the people that hurt me, and I tell my patients about the importance of having that faith and hope, having that connection with the Lord. The words faith, hope and love – they mean something.”
