Troy mother encourages people to get vaccinated after tough COVID-19 battle

TROY, Mich. (FOX 2) - A Troy family that was adamant about practicing safety protocols still ended up battling COVID-19, with the virus hitting one of them particularly hard.

Tina Catron, her husband, and two sons caught the virus a few weeks ago.

"Mine turned into bilateral pneumonia," Catron said.

The illness forced the 44-year-old to be hospitalized.

Catron said she believes her family may have caught COVID from one of her son's soccer games.

"One of our kids maybe gave it to us or we caught it from someone on the sidelines," she said.

Catron is shocked at how badly the virus impacted her because she considers herself to be healthy and has no underlying health conditions.

"I have no underlying health conditions, I'm very active," she said.

When she ended up in the hospital, she said she thought she was going to die.

Catron said she had been trying to get vaccinated before getting sick. Doctors told her that if she had been vaccinated, her fight against the virus would have been different.

"They basically told me, 'If you had gotten the vaccine, you would not have ended up in the hospital,'" she said.

Catron, who was released from the hospital Monday, is encouraging people to get vaccinated.

"If I could go back three weeks I would be knocking on every door, waiting at every pharmacy," she said.