‘Blessing and a miracle.’ Tri-Cities business owner in a fight for his life since Thanksgiving

Mike Welch had a premonition in the early days of the pandemic that if he ever got the new coronavirus, he was “not going to fare too well.”

The 58-year-old Pasco business owner was seemingly healthy and took the necessary safety precautions, like wearing a mask, said his daughter, Amanda Welch.

He personally did not know anyone who’d been stricken with COVID-19, but he followed news reports of the growing case counts locally and across the country.

“We were all so stupid scared of it,” said Amanda Welch, a certified nursing assistant who works with the elderly. “We were so cautious because we didn’t want to expose the people that we knew were high risk.”

So when Mike Welch started feeling sick in late November, he stayed home from work to protect his employees at Creative Concrete Design. Over the next few days, he dealt with insomnia, constant vomiting and eventually rapid breathing.

Both Rita and Mike Welch tested positive for COVID. Rita did not have many symptoms and thought her husband would be able to fight it off at home because “he’s so strong,” said their daughter. “But COVID was attacking his lungs from the inside as he sat there.”

His wife took him to Kadlec Regional Medical Center on Thanksgiving morning. She knew when he asked for a wheelchair to get into the Richland hospital that the man, lovingly referred to by family as “The Hulk,” was severely ill.

Two months later, Mike Welch remains hospitalized.

He spent almost 50 days on a ventilator to help pump oxygen into his body, and wasn’t allowed ICU visits from his wife until Day 40 after the family persisted in saying the one-on-one contact may help him since they’ve been together 45 years.

The family say they were asked at least twice by doctors and nurses to make end-of-life decisions for Mike, such as removing him from all machines, because staff believed he was suffering as his lung health deteriorated and questioned his quality of life if he survived.

Amanda Welch said it was disheartening to have some medical professionals say they had no hope for her dad and to be treated like they shouldn’t second guess his prognosis.

Mike Welch’s family refused to give up on him, got a second opinion from an outside doctor and on Jan. 16 had him moved by ambulance to Vibra Hospital in Boise.

“We just decided right then and there, we’re going to fight,” Amanda Welch told the Tri-City Herald. “After only a 10% chance of survival this far, we’re going to do everything possible, do every single outcome possible, so that we know that we did everything that we could.”

Just before his move to the Idaho respiratory facility, Mike opened his eyes and started communicating by blinking. His daughter said she spoke to her dad on a FaceTime call and asked him to blink twice if he could hear her, and he did just that.

Their last communication with him was Dec. 6 — Mike Welch’s 59th birthday — when he gave the family a thumbs up during a video chat before being intubated.

Then last Tuesday, Mike Welch woke up and spoke once again.

Awake again

Rita Welch — who’s now living in an extended-stay hotel in Boise with her sister-in-law — was called and told somebody wanted to talk with her. She wasn’t thinking and expected a doctor or other health professional to get on the phone.

She heard a “Hello” in her husband’s voice, which sounded different because it had been weeks since he last spoke.

A surprised Rita Welch said, “I love you so much,” her daughter shared. “And where there used to be silence (on prior calls), an ‘I love you’ echoed back.”

Staff then helped Mike Welch make brief calls so he could share the sentiment with Amanda Welch, 32, son Mikey Welch, 35, and grandkids Kingston and Veda.

“I never thought I’d hear his voice again, you know, and when I did it was like my prayers were answered,” said Amanda Welch.

“It was a blessing and a miracle,” she added. “Medicine is only so much and then there is somebody way bigger than us.”

Mike Welch still has a tracheal tube, but is breathing mostly on his own with supplementary oxygen, she said.

He has brain fog after being sedated for so long and is still too weak to carry on full conversations, yet he’s asked to sit up in a recliner and can visit with his wife and sister through a glass wall while on the phone.

Rita Welch told her kids their father is “getting a little bit of his spunk back” because when she asked him Wednesday how he’s feeling, Mike Welch replied, “I feel like s---.”

His wife had to remind him he’s been through a lot since Nov. 26, but said he’s better than before.

They don’t yet know what the future holds — how many weeks or months he may require rehab in long-term acute care, if he will walk out of there on his own and if he will need a transplant because of damage done to his lungs by COVID.

But for now the family sees “a little light at the end of the tunnel” and continues praying for his eventual recovery.

A fighter

Amanda Welch explained that her dad got “The Hulk” nickname seven years ago after a serious work accident at Edgar Brown Stadium that he ultimately walked away from with only two stitches.

“He’s a fighter, that’s for sure,” she said. “Just the fact that he’s making progress now and going in the right direction ... We just want my dad to be the healthiest that he can be. And when the medical bills come piling in, we’ll take that on when it comes.”

The daughter started a GoFundMe campaign to help with the increasing costs. Her father has insurance but they don’t know how long that will last or how much it will end up covering.

The fundraiser quickly hit its $30,000 goal in the first 48 hours, and now is over $54,000.

Amanda Welch described the amount of support and love they’ve received as extraordinary.

“To have my dad back, I will give the world. He’s a great man and is somebody who deserves to be here,” she said.

“And the love that we received from everybody ... there’s not even words that I can say, because it was just so joyful and overwhelming to know that my dad has touched so many people’s hearts in this community that you don’t even realize.”

Amanda Welch told the Herald that her mother cried when she heard about all of the donations because they’re hard-working people who don’t ask for help.

“I don’t want what they worked for their whole life to go under because we’re fighting for my dad to get better,” she said.

Pasco roots

Rita and Mike Welch are Pasco natives who met in seventh grade at Stevens Middle School and have been together ever since. Mike was a star athlete at Pasco High in football, wrestling and baseball.

They married after both graduated from Pasco High, and “their life is just like a true love story. I always joke about my parents being #relationshipgoals,” said Amanda Welch.

Mike Welch operates the concrete company with his brother, while also tending to the couple’s 5-acre property in Pasco.

Rita Welch works part time in nutrition services with the Pasco School District. She previously worked at Buttrey’s and Food Pavilion grocery stores.

Their daughter said she’s constantly left wondering why this is happening to her dad, and explained she may not understand it but knows “God has a plan for everything.”

The family’s story has been seen by strangers through GoFundMe, social media and media reports.

Amanda Welch has been contacted by people from as far as Virginia who say they’re going through the same experience and now have some hope.

“I just feel like that’s so amazing,” said Amanda Welch. “I told them how important it is to be an advocate for your loved one when they’re in any kind of medical situation like this.”

Closer to home, Amanda said it’s disappointing to see people still debating if the virus is even real one year into the pandemic and claiming that only those health concerns need to wear masks.

COVID-19 is very real, she said, and it’s that misguided mentality that put her father in the ICU fighting for his life. The family does not know how either Rita or Mike contracted the virus since no contact tracing was done.

“You don’t wear a mask to protect yourself, you wear it to protect other people,” said Amanda Welch. “I wish people would hear that, regardless of political views. Just wear a mask....”

This story was originally published January 24, 2021 at 10:28 AM.