CityView Magazine

54 March 2021 HEALTH A Thank-You To Cape Fear Valley's Frontline Professionals BY KIM HAST Y F or decades, Tommy Arnold has been the first to pitch in whenever someone needed help. We'll likely never know the extent to which he's been the willing benefactor to school fundraisers, nonprofit organizations, those in need of emergency medical treatments or those simply hurting and in need of a meal. In November, when he was the one who needed help, he said a host of frontline medical workers were there for him. "I'd like to thank them," he said, "for answering God's call on their life to do what they're doing." Arnold, who brought Fayetteville's first Chick-fil-A to town in 1975 and has gone on to own two of the chain's most successful North Carolina franchises, tested positive for COVID-19 early in November, as did his wife of 51 years, Peggy. you don't realize what these people are doing and the impact they have on people's lives," he said. "It's not a transactional activity for them. It's caring for the family. It's caring for the individual. It's making sure that the patient is getting everything they can to make them comfortable and being sensitive." It was on the cold and rainy evening of Nov. 11, just as his wife was beginning to regain a bit of her own energy, that Tommy Arnold took a turn for the worse. Despite the efforts of his family doctor to treat the virus, Arnold's oxygen intake level had grown dangerously low. Peggy Arnold made the decision to call 911, and first responders from Fire Station 6 on Cliffdale Road quickly arrived. "e only thing I remember is one of them apologizing for not having something to put over me for the rain," Arnold said. "I said, 'Don't worry about that.' " He spent several days in the intensive care unit, with Peggy unable to visit but receiving regular updates from the nurses. He then spent the following days trying to get stronger … and trying to convince his doctors he was well enough to go home. Arnold had none of the preexisting conditions that can exacerbate COVID, but he nevertheless had pneumonia in one lung as well as a partially collapsed lung. Doctors told him he would have been in grave danger had he waited much longer. Going home was going to take time. "Lying there, you get the sense that you're in a lot better shape than you really are," he said. "I thought I was getting a chest cold at first," said Peggy Arnold, whose chronic asthma sometimes mirrors COVID symptoms, such as frequent coughing. "I started feeling really bad, but I didn't have the high fever like Tommy did." Just two weeks earlier, Tommy Arnold, who is 74, had won Highland Country Club's 36-hole senior golf championship. "at's not a headline," he said. "It was me and a group of other guys, all of which are over 70. None of us are ready for the PGA Tour." But despite the fact that Arnold led an active life and previously had been in good health, the next few weeks would lead to a struggle as he fought to live and to recover. It was an unforgettable ordeal that would leave him and his family grateful for the care he received on Cape Fear Valley Medical Center's COVID unit. "Until you go through something like this, Arnold, who spent two weeks at Cape Fear Valley, bears no visible effects of the illness that has killed, to date, 260 Cumberland County residents.

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