By Caroline Van Vlaardingen, Adam Kovac
MONTREAL — As Thanksgiving weekend passed, one of Montreal's most renowned musicians had plenty to be grateful for.
Last spring, a battle with COVID-19 almost cost cellist Denis Brott his life.
“It's been a climb like I never had in my life,” he said on a recent day while at his Laurentian home.
Brott had just returned from playing in Europe in March when he developed a high temperature.
“I don't know where I got it but within three days of arriving home, I spiked a 42-degree fever,” he remembered.
The fever persisted for days. Unable to get through on the government hotline, he went to a hospital where he collapsed.
“That was the best thing that could have happened to me, in retrospect,” he said. “Urgences Sante arrived and took my vitals and realized I was sick. They put in CHUM and the next day, I was in ICU on a ventilator.”
“When I got home on May 4, I couldn't walk up this walkway. I was with a walker and I had somebody holding me. I had been quite decimated by 32 days on a ventilator.”
In total, Brott spent 45 days in hospital, partially spent in an induced coma.
“I had the misfortune to develop not only the viral infection but a bacterial infection and then other organs were involved. I was on a ventilator, they tried to take me off, it didn't work, put me back on.”
During his hospital stay, Brott's kidneys and liver were failing. He lost 25 pounds while intubated and was given a powerful combination of steroids and other drugs to keep him sedated.
“I almost didn't make it. They didn't know what was going on. I have since had access to the hospital records and when I see the x-rays... they did try to save me. It was touch and go.”