When You Just Can't Be There
By Amy Goldberg
The Fifth Commandment states, “Honor your mother and father.” Judaism mandates that children tend personally to their parents’ physical and psychological needs. Today, many children live far away from their parents and have not lived near home since leaving to go to college. This makes taking care of aging parents difficult, even in normal times. Then throw in the COVID-19 pandemic and all the obstacles that have come with it, and it is almost impossible, both physically and emotionally, to feel like you are doing an adequate job fulfilling your responsibilities. This is the situation I am currently in.
Being one of three daughters, each of us is responsible for a different aspect of our mother’s care. As the only one with a medical or nursing background, I am left with the task of advocating for my mother’s best interest and making sure she is comfortable and safe. I do this willingly and out of love. Ever since my father passed away 19 years ago, I have been able to manage her medical care primarily remotely, attending numerous doctors’ appointments, and being with her in person when she rehabbed from both hip and double knee replacement surgeries.
My 82-year-old mother lives alone in the city where I grew up – Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. It takes me two flights, and at least seven and a half hours to cover the 2,200 miles between Reno and Beachwood, anytime I want to visit her. In the past, I have seen her three or four times a year, trying to coordinate my visits around her numerous doctors’ appointments. She is medically very complicated and will probably have a shortened lifespan. My mother currently resides in a Jewish, long-term care facility, after several stints of rehab for repeated hip dislocations and one stay in a different long-term care facility.
In her previous facility, new COVID-19 cases were being identified on a daily basis. The virus was becoming rampant, infecting residents and staff alike. Staffing coverage subsequently became very limited as more employees were exposed to the virus and needed to quarantine for the government mandated 14 days. Eventually, everything in the facility shut down for several weeks, including my ability to video chat with my mom. My heart ached that I couldn’t be there in person and was not even able to see her through FaceTime to tell her how much I loved her and that she would get through this tragedy. It was just a matter of time before my mother would contract the virus too. As a nurse, I was doing my best to make sure she was protected (isolated from contagious residents) and trying to accurately assess her medical status. At the same time, I was preparing myself emotionally for the inevitable call that she was COVID-19 positive and going into isolation. Given her medical co-morbidities, my fear was that when, not if, she acquired COVID-19, she would not survive.
One day, about a week after she tested positive for COVID-19, I was finally able to have a video call with my mother, and she looked horrible. She was thin, pale, and appeared to be gasping for air during our conversation. She was more confused than usual, and the left side of her mouth was drooping as she spoke. After about five minutes, I abruptly ended the video and called the nurse and described my mother’s condition and my concern for her well-being. I insisted she be evaluated immediately. The nurse called me back and told me that my mother was, in fact, in severe respiratory distress and requiring increasing amounts of oxygen. She asked for my permission to have my mother transported to the hospital via ambulance for further evaluation. I said “absolutely.” This was the only way to possibly save my mother from this terrible disease.
When the ambulance arrived at the facility, they called me again to tell me that my mother was adamantly refusing to be transported to the hospital. Once again, I felt like I wasn’t there for her. She was scared and just needed my hand to hold and reassure her that everything would be okay. I asked them to let me speak with my mother and I told her firmly that if she didn’t go, she was going to die! At that point, she acquiesced and was put on the stretcher and taken to the hospital.
On admission, she was found to be critically ill and was quickly started on a treatment of Remdesivir and steroids, as well as supplemental oxygen. Because of my mother’s wishes not to be resuscitated, she was kept on a regular medical floor and not admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. She remained in the hospital for a total of eight days and was discharged back to her long-term care facility very weak and frail. My mother is a true fighter and to think that she had to battle this awful virus without family and loved ones at her side breaks my heart.
COVID-19 has made my task of overseeing her care nearly impossible. Traveling to see my mother was not an option. First, I couldn’t fathom potentially exposing myself to the virus on a plane, in the airport, or in a hotel, and then passing it onto my elderly mother. Second, the Governor of Ohio mandated that there be no outside visitors at long-term care facilities, so my only choice would have been to stand outside her window and just wave to her. I have not been able to see my mother for the past nine months in either of her long-term care facilities. I have had to trust what the nurses and other caretakers are telling me about how my mother is doing and about her care. Some of which has been accurate. Some of it, not so much. Totally relying on others is not in my blood. I am extremely hands-on, and COVID-19 has prevented this.
I never imagined that my mother would have declined during a global pandemic and that she would be in a long-term care facility, by herself, with family and friends unable to visit her. As a daughter who both loves and has cared for my mom for many years, it is heartbreaking to see her suffer. She has declined both mentally and physically, and it seems like she has just given up on having any normalcy in her life. Almost every time I speak with her, she tells me she wants to leave the facility, that I just dumped her there, and that I am not a good daughter. I know she says these things out of frustration, but it is nevertheless hurtful to me and heart-wrenching. COVID-19 has prevented me from holding my mother’s hand and hugging her during the very difficult aging process of going from living independently to being totally dependent upon others. Although I can’t be there in person, I call her every day, video chat each week, and make sure that she understands that I haven’t given up on her and that she is loved more than she knows by her three girls.
Photo/Amy Goldberg.
Amy Goldberg relocated to Reno from the East Coast 5 1/2 years ago with her husband. She is an active member of Temple Sinai, Reno and has participated on their Membership Committee since joining the congregation. Amy is a Registered Nurse specializing in newborn care and provides in-home care to infants and young children. When not working, she enjoys walking and taking in the beautiful scenery Reno has to offer.
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