Longtime Sumter physician recovers from COVID-19 with family support

Joe Williams lives life in a revolving cycle of caring and giving back, and COVID-19 has made its way around the circle for the doctor.

The longtime doctor, nocturnist, hospitalist at Prisma Health Tuomey Hospital, private practice physician, son, father, grandfather thinks he knows the patient he contracted the highly contagious respiratory virus from. At first, it was just a cough and slight fever.

Back at the beginning of the pandemic’s reach in Sumter, Williams tested positive for the virus at the beginning of April.

The second week was worse. Fatigue, coughing, fever and all-over aches and chills. He still hasn’t completely regained his sense of smell, and he has less tolerance for sweet food and popcorn. He loves popcorn.

His wife, Brenda, would put his food on a tray and leave it at the bedroom door. She took care of him until she also came down with the virus.

The virus affected their ability to be around their two grandsons, one a sophomore at Coastal Carolina University who has been home with campuses closed nationwide, the other a 10-year-old who attends Alice Drive Middle School. He would normally be at their house “all the time.” His mother, the Williams’ youngest of three daughters, is an RN in the operating room at Tuomey, so the grandson would often get help with his math homework from his grandfather while Mom was at work.

He called every day while his grandparents were sick to ask if he’d ever be allowed back over.

Williams was out of work for five weeks and has been back for six, but his and his wife’s recovery hasn’t stopped Williams from wanting people to “not take this for granted.” He treated a woman in her 50s at the hospital this week, he said, and cases continue to see record highs in Sumter and statewide.

While neither Williams nor his wife had to go to the hospital while sick, their quarantine forced them to take some time off – resulting in binge-watching Clint Eastwood movies. So far, the lasting impacts on his body are his loss of smell and a switch from sweet relish to the more sour dill relish on his black-eyed peas, and the virus has affected his family in ways beyond the couple’s home. His cousin died this week from it, Williams said. He couldn’t attend the funeral in Georgia.

The cousin, who was in his 70s, was like an older brother to Williams, he said.

Family has always been important to Williams. Family is why he is where he is and why he continues to do what he does.

“We both had great, really strong fathers,” Williams said.

His father, Curtis, died at 47 from melanoma of the foot in 1979. He was his son’s best friend.

Growing up in rural Georgia in a town outside of Columbus, father taught son rabbit hunting. Williams said both his parents – his mother is still alive at age 88 – and his wife’s parents are their heroes. Good, working-class people.

“They weren’t perfect, but they were doing the best they could,” he said.

He was the first in his family to go to college, and his three younger sisters followed suit.

The Williamses met at a summer program at the Medical College of Georgia that supported black students interested in going to medical school in the early ’70s. Brenda was giving information to a group of new students when Joe asked a friend who that was who was talking too much. She’s still the talker, they both say, Joe endearingly.

The next day, a group of students were hanging out – less focused on school work – while Brenda sat studying an ophthalmology manual. Joe asked to sit next to her.

“He said something like, ‘It’s nice sitting by you,'” Brenda said. “I said, ‘Uh huh.’ I promise I was shyer then.”

Their strong connection to their own families growing up and their empathy for people, especially those traditionally underserved in terms of race or access to health care, has propelled them through their lives and marriage.

While Brenda has fought for black and civil rights, been a motivational speaker at the jail in Sumter for female inmates and helped oppose voter suppression, Joe opened a free medical clinic in March for uninsured patients. In his semi-retirement.

They owned a private practice at the corner of North Main Street and Charlotte Avenue from June 1, 1892, to Nov. 14, 2014, where he said they had 3,000 to 4,000 active patients. Dr. Joe, as he became known, then started working at Tuomey, where he still serves part time.

The new clinic is run out of his wife’s nonprofit, The Family Unit, which aims to improve quality of life for people living in poverty and promotes the institution of marriage.

In all their giving back to others, the moments where they can celebrate with their own family remain a highlight.

After weeks of having their grandsons wave at them from the yard, they all had a family meal together recently. It was their 45th wedding anniversary.