WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Mom of five Queshonda Kudaisi, didn’t think she’d complete her doctoral dissertation in time.
“It was like a miracle because I didn’t think I was going to make it to that point,” Queshonda Kudaisi said.
She and her husband contracted COVID-19 back in August while she was six months pregnant.
“Lost my taste, my smell. I had a fever, chills, body aches. All of the symptoms, I had all of that. The worst was, I guess because I lost my taste and smell I wasn’t able to eat anything,” Kudaisi said.
Her symptoms were so severe it progressed to pneumonia. Kudaisi thought she and her baby would not survive. When she got to the emergency room, there were no more beds available.
“They said 45 people were ahead of me, so they put me in a hallway with the other severe COVID patients,” said Kudaisi.
It would be nearly a month before she got better. Last Wednesday, Kudaisi gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
They were discharged from the hospital Saturday, and that same night, she walked across the stage to receive her PhD. Her newborn and family were there to witness.
“Despite all of that I was still able to end up at the place that I wanted to be, which was at graduation,” said Kudaisi.
She plans to use her PhD to become a professor and build her non-profit Narrow Path Outreach.
