A Texas bride-to-be in has died from the coronavirus five days after she was supposed to get married.
Stephanie Lynn Smith, 29, from Lubbock, passed away before she could marry her fiancé, 31-year-old Jamie Bassett.
She came down with an illness in the days leading up to the nuptials which she believed to be shingles, which was thought to have flared up as a result of stress leading up to the big day.
Stephanie Lynn Smith, 29, was due to marry 31-year-old Jamie Bassett but contracted coronavirus days before her wedding
Days before her wedding she started to feel unwell and went to hospital
'She was stressing about the wedding,' her mother, Oralia Smith, told the NBC News. 'She went to see the doctor about that, and he gave her medication for that.'
But she was not experiencing any symptoms related to the coronavirus. A few days later she was having trouble tasting and smelling food and Smith's condition worsened.
Her fiancé took her to hospital where she was diagnosed with COVID-19 and pneumonia.
After being discharged she went home to rest.
'She was extremely fatigued,' Bassett said. 'She honestly might have slept, like, 20 hours that day.'
Doctors diagnosed Smith with COVID and sent her back home to rest
But things continued to get worse and Smith returned to hospital once again after her oxygen levels dropped.
'We kissed her and told her we would see her and that she would be OK,' her mother said.
It would be the last time anyone from her family would see her alive.
Apart from attempting to get her oxygen levels up, things did not seem too severe and Smith was still able to post to Facebook.
'Thankful today for nurses who pray. And will get giddy for me when I show them a photo of my wedding gown,' she wrote. 'Not out of the woods.... far from it. But I promise I'm feeling every single prayer. Thank you!!'
Smith spent what would have been her wedding day in hospital, in isolation, as she battled the virus.
'Today was supposed to be my wedding day,' her finance Bassett wrote in a Facebook post. 'Instead, Stephanie is in the hospital getting her oxygen levels up and I haven't seen her in two days. This really sucks and I just want everything to not be this way.'
Upon being readmitted to hospital Smith was found to have pneumonia and COVID
Smith spent her wedding day in complete isolation dying five days later
Five days later, Bassett and Smith's family were summoned to the hospital, fearing the worst.
'I was kind of dreading it and had that in the back of my mind the whole time we were driving to the hospital,' Bassett said.
By the time the family arrived, Smith had already passed away.
'Doctors told us that they'd lost her pulse four times, and they brought her back three times with CPR, and for the last one they couldn't get her pulse back,' Bassett said.
Smith's family is unsure how she contracted the coronavirus. She had partly been working from home and partly in an office since the summer.
'Her laugh was so contagious. It was so loud. It was so funny,' her mother said in a tribute to her daughter. 'Just to hear her. Always the loudest one at family gatherings.'
Instead of enjoying their first month as a married couple, Bassett has been left mourning the love of his life.
'This is someone that you don't meet every day. She was an uncommonly caring and loving person who just wants to fix the world,' he said.
Instead of enjoying their first month as a married couple, Bassett, left, has been left mourning the love of his life
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