A Florida mom who has 8 kids didn’t think much about being not vaccinated for COVID-19, and it’s a decision Ganeen Starling almost didn’t survive to regret. Not being vaccinated, Starling said, brought her close to dying and she feels remorse over her bad decision, ClickOrlando reports.

“It was horrifying,” Starling said. “I never in my life have felt like I was going to die until that day.”

Starling, who lives with her family in Lake Butler, Florida added her husband and her kids were also not vaccinated. Plus, she listened to far too many people who were against the vaccine, which convinced her not to get it. They were claiming it hadn’t been around long enough.

“Honestly, I think I listened. I think I let people influence me, like saying ‘Oh, you know, the government is just trying to fill our bodies with stuff and they’re trying to push this shot on us,” she said.

Then her husband caught COVID earlier this month and it spread to Starling and their four kids living at home, including their youngest who’s only six.

For Starling, it wasn’t long before her symptoms grew dangerous and she found herself struggling to breathe. She was transported to the hospital at that point.

“I remember being very desperate, grabbing the mask and just feeling the oxygen come in,” she said.

That led to a stint in the hospital, with six out of a total of nine days in the ICU.

“In those moments when you can’t breathe like that even with all of the oxygen they were giving me, it feels like you have a Ziploc bag over your head — like somebody’s holding you and I had oxygen on and I was still feeling that way.”

This was almost certainly terrifying for Starling, but it didn’t start out that way. She even believed she and her husband contracted the disease but “didn’t even know it.”

“There had been times I’d been sick and I was like, ‘Oh it’s COVID. No big deal,” she said.

Really? In a house where you’re living with your four children. It’s “no big deal?” And as she grew progressively worse, her oxygen level dropped to 68 percent, she noted, adding she was told she only had a 20 percent chance of surviving.

Apparently, at that point, she finally realized just how serious her situation was.

“My youngest baby is six years old and so when you’re told that and you have a six-year-old you know like if I die, he’s probably not going to remember me,” Starling said.

So she’s speaking out because she doesn’t want others to repeat her mistake.

“I was one of those people that was like, ‘I can’t believe people are just going to inject their bodies with this medication. We don’t know enough about it.’ Now I’m just like it’s just a shot. Go get the stupid shot. That vaccine could have stopped all of this. Just one little shot,” she said. “I feel foolish that I didn’t get it. I wish to God I would have got it because it’s not just about what it could have prevented me from experiencing physically in my life right now, but it could have saved my family so much heartache. My children from seeing me go through that. My husband. My siblings.”

Starling is still struggling with the ongoing effects of the disease. She has trouble breathing and wears an oxygen tube. Even simple tasks are a struggling.

“So much regret,” she said at the end of the interview. But now, she and her entire family will get the vaccination. It’s very sad that she had to learn this the hard way. Sometimes, however, it’s the only way some people will ever learn.

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