A 28-year-old woman who underwent a double lung transplant to save her life after she contracted Covid-19 said she woke up unable to recognise her own body.
Mayra Ramirez, from Chicago, was the first patient in the US to undergo the procedure.
Her condition was so serious that her family travelled from North Carolina to say goodbye to her, she revealed.
Paralegal Mayra told Today: "I had nightmares, most of them were me drowning.
"And I relate that to me not being able to breathe and struggling to breathe.
"It's not just I was asleep and I woke up and I missed six weeks of my life."
And she told Fox News : “I looked at myself and couldn’t recognise my body, I didn’t have the cognitive ability to process what was going on.
"All I knew was that I wanted water.”
She underwent surgery on June 5, but did not wake up for more than a week.
Her mum gave permission for the 10 hour operation which saved her life.
Speaking after her return home, where she is recovering her strength, Mayra said: “It wasn’t until weeks later that I had the ability to, you know, think to myself there’s a family out there that’s grieving their loved one.
"I have that person’s lungs and how lucky I was to have received it.”
Surgeon Dr Ankit Bharat told Today that Mayra was "terminally, terminally ill" with severe and permanent lung damage, and would not have survived without the transplant.
Dr Bharat added that it was the most difficult surgery he had carried out in his career.
