A buoyant Jacob Larson sang to doctors and nurses, Wednesday afternoon, at the courtyard outside of UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital, as burgers and hotdogs were served up along with Larson’s bluesy renditions.
Larson leads a 10-member funk and soul band emerging from COVID-19 restrictions. The Jacob Larson Band has played mostly outdoor venues and is scheduled to perform at this year’s Taste of Colorado festival in downtown Denver.
During this week’s “Grill Day” for hospital workers at Longs Peak Hospital, Larson performed alongside the band’s keyboardist. The setting was small but especially important to Larson.
Some members of the audience were part of the medical team that saved his life while he was stricken with COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic. When he finally left Longs Peak Hospital on April 20, 2020 to the cheers of hospital staff, he vowed he would play for those who cared for him during his 20-day stretch at the hospital.
Larson said he couldn’t turn down an invitation to perform for them during a celebration of the hospital’s front line workers.
“I told them I wanted to do something special for them,” Larson said. “I wanted this to be a healing and full circle experience for everybody. And maybe a way to spread a little hope.”
Larson was admitted with full-blown COVID symptoms in March 2020 and the experience left him drained both physically and mentally. “I was in a constant state of terror,” Larson said of his stay, which included 13 days on a ventilator to keep him breathing.
At the time he was one of the hospital’s first and sickest COVID-19 patients. He was also 21, the youngest patient the hospital staff had yet seen with the virus.
“He was an outlier,” said Fernando Mijares, an associate nurse manager who was part of a swarming team of specialists that worked on Larson. “He was in terrible shape, he was intubated, sedated and on medication to help him fight off inflammation and blood clots.”
Mijares said he was heartened to see Larson put on a spirited show for his colleagues. “He looks great and he sounds great,” Mijares said.
Mijares came down with COVID-19 two weeks after Larson was sent home from Longs Peak. Most of his family also contracted COVID, which also shook Mijares. “It was a dark time for a lot of people,” he said.
Larson’s return bolstered the staffers at Longs Peak Hospital, who are dealing with the fatigue and weight of the pandemic as a new wave of COVID patients are coming, according to a UCHealth news release.
“COVID-19 hospitalizations have more than doubled in the past month across the UCHealth system and continue to rise at Longs Peak as well,” the news release states.
Larson studied music business and performance at the University of Colorado-Denver when he started having stomach problems in March 2020. He went to urgent care with a fever and dehydration, Larson said.
He was later sent home. On March 22, he returned and was once again admitted to urgent care, his symptoms so severe he was intubated and put into a medically-induced coma, Larson said.
When he was conscious, Larson struggled with the virus-induced isolation. “I was alone 24/7,” Larson said, adding he started having hallucinations and severe anxiety while isolated and bed-ridden.
The only contact he could have with his family was via telephone. He said he was so weak he couldn’t hold his telephone up to mouth to talk. The staff helped him put velcro on his phone so he could stick it to a picture frame for his face time.
“I was on the phone constantly,” Larson said. “That is what got me through.”
After he was released from Longs Peak, he resumed his music career. He worked with a voice coach to regain his strength and he graduated from CU-Denver.
Larson said he also is dealing with the trauma brought on by his fight with COVID. He works for his dad as an office manager while his band performs and gets more concert dates.
“I just feel so very grateful … to everyone,” Larson said this week as he looked at the blue-smocked crowd around him. “To see everyone here is amazing.”
