HATTIESBURG, Miss. - April Clopton stepped out of the white Chevy Tahoe ready for football.
Wearing her most festive Southern Miss top, jean shorts and brown sandals, Clopton kept an arsenal of black-and-gold gear in a clear bag slung over her left shoulder. You wouldn’t know it, but she was smiling ear to ear, a cloth facemask revealing only features north of her nose.
It’s almost hard to believe that less than a month ago, the 47-year old lay in a hospital bed in Brookhaven, Mississippi, needing an oxygen machine to breathe, her body aching, her mind in what’s called “COVID fog,” and her only outlet to the outside world FaceTime conversations with her son and husband.