WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A dangerous COVID-19 infection nearly took a young Triad doctor's life.
After months of recovery, his family is writing a new chapter.
Billy Dugal just completed his five-year residency and accepted a job as a private practice general surgeon.
"We were in this transition period and life was good," said Doctor Billy Dugal. "We had a five-month-old at the time and had finally gotten some time off. We were starting to look for a house. You know, had kind of finished this long training and was ready to kind of start the next chapter."
Around Labor Day of 2022, Billy, his wife Rebecca, and their daughter went to a wedding.
That's when everything began to change.
"We all got COVID," said Billy Dugal. "My wife and child had a very mild course. I did as well, but then I started having some strange symptoms."
"He said he felt like his toes were kind of numb and he thought it was from chasing all the cousins around because he was wearing boots and everything, but it quickly progressed," said Rebecca Dugal. "I remember we were going through the airport and he was really struggling. He just continued to decline, his back pain was really bad."
"Within a couple of days, I got to the point where I couldn't walk and was falling down," said Billy.
Dr. Billy Dugal was diagnosed at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist with an autoimmune disease called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). It's where the body attacks itself.
He became paralyzed and his lungs collapsed.
"Within a week of being admitted to the hospital, he had a rapid response," said Rebecca. "He was incubated on a ventilator and within 12 days after that, he crashed and was put onto ECMO."
An ECMO is a life support machine to take over heart and lung function.
"I am a nurse practitioner and have experience as a pediatric cardiac nurse, so I am very familiar with ECMO," said Rebecca. "It's not something I ever thought our family would have to deal with and I remember when they were coding him, I knew what was going on, I knew it wasn't good. All of a sudden a respiratory therapist yelled out, has anybody thought about an ECMO consult? I just blacked out after that, knowing what it meant."
"One night on call, I got a message that there was an urgent consult and I heard about Billy's situation," said Dr. Lucas Neff, from Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. "I Didn't know anything about him or his family, but we recognized that very quickly we needed to move."
"At the lowest point, you kind of make peace with that you're going to die and that you're not going to survive this and that you're leaving your family and your loved ones behind. That was the last thing I said to my wife was to take care of our daughter, Caroline," said Billy.
The couple said their doctor, Lucas Neff, was the only doctor who remained optimistic.
"It was not a good situation to be in, but Dr. Neff was the only one out of all the doctors and nurses that day who came to us and wasn't apologizing to us as if we were already at Billy's funeral," said Rebecca.
After 8 days of fighting for his life, Billy began a major recovery journey.
"I couldn't lift my pinky finger, I couldn't open my hands, I couldn't shrug my shoulders, couldn't swallow, or any of those things," said Billy.
It led to months of speech, occupational and physical therapy.
Billy's contract with a surgical practice was terminated because he couldn't start on time.
That's where Dr. Neff stepped in once again, offering Billy a position to regain operating room skills and later joining the ECMO surgical fellowship alongside Neff.
"Proposing the idea for him to become the ECMO fellow, for him to apply these therapies, which are the same therapy he got from other people, that just seemed like a really cool full circle moment," said Dr. Neff.
That wasn't the only full-circle moment.
In January, Billy and Rebecca welcomed a baby boy with the middle name of Lucas after Dr. Neff.
"To have a namesake it was really was really special right and that's a tremendous honor," said Dr. Neff. "I felt like I don't deserve it, I was just doing my job."
"I thought it would be a great way to honor him," said Billy. "Every time I'm able to go to the playground and push my kids on the swing set, I'm always going to think of Luke Neff."
Billy will complete his surgical fellowship later this month.
His wife even changed her specialty after Billy's situation. She now works as a nurse practitioner in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist's J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation.
All three work for Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and agreed when saying this traumatic experience will give them a strong connection to their patients who might be going through a similar situation.