d*****o
发帖数: 103 | 1 Death of coronavirus: A daughter fights to say goodbye to her mother
Deborah Mastromano’s mother was dying, isolated inside a Long Island
nursing home that had been beset by the coronavirus. But she couldn’t get
anyone to pick up the phone.
Mastromano called the nursing desk. She called a supervisor. She called a
nursing assistant. One staff member answered late last Saturday but quickly
ended the call. “I can’t talk right now,” the woman said, before hanging
up.
Mastromano, 67, knew the workers were stretched thin. It had been nearly a
month since the home for seniors in Brentwood, New York, had banned visitors
, hoping to prevent the spread of the coronavirus among its frail residents.
But the virus found its way in anyway, and now nurses were scrambling to
care for the sick.
Mastromano’s mother, Betty Coleman, 88, wasn’t among those infected, but
her health was declining. Coleman had been in hospice care since July,
suffering from dementia, lung cancer and heart disease.
Finally, late Sunday, Mastromano got her mother’s doctor on the phone. He
gave a distressing update. Coleman appeared to be fading rapidly and was now
“actively dying” — a phrase physicians use to describe a patient who has
only hours or days to live.
Her mother hadn’t been eating or drinking, the doctor explained. And
earlier that day, staff had found her in bed, half-conscious, faintly
calling for her only daughter, who prior to the pandemic had always visited
three or four times a day.
“Debbie ... Debbie ... Debbie ...”
Mastromano cried and pleaded. “Let me come see her,” she said.
The doctor said he wasn’t sure if that was possible. But he would try.
As the coronavirus sweeps the nation, infecting and killing thousands,
hospital and nursing home policies intended to slow its spread are blocking
people from being at the bedside of dying loved ones. In some instances, the
virus has devastated otherwise healthy people, forcing families to grapple
with difficult end-of-life conversations far sooner than expected, and
remotely. For others, like Mastromano and her mother, the crisis is
complicating an end-of-life process that’s been in motion for months or
years.
In New York, where intensive care units are packed with coronavirus patients
, most visitors are prohibited. Some nurses say they’ve tried to make time
to hold patients’ hands in their final hours, but overworked medical staff
can’t sit vigil, and as a result, some patients are dying with no one at
their side.
Mastromano’s mother, Betty Coleman, 88, wasn’t among those infected, but
her health was declining. Coleman had been in hospice care since July,
suffering from dementia, lung cancer and heart disease.
Finally, late Sunday, Mastromano got her mother’s doctor on the phone. He
gave a distressing update. Coleman appeared to be fading rapidly and was now
“actively dying” — a phrase physicians use to describe a patient who has
only hours or days to live.
Her mother hadn’t been eating or drinking, the doctor explained. And
earlier that day, staff had found her in bed, half-conscious, faintly
calling for her only daughter, who prior to the pandemic had always visited
three or four times a day.
“Debbie ... Debbie ... Debbie ...”
Mastromano cried and pleaded. “Let me come see her,” she said.
The doctor said he wasn’t sure if that was possible. But he would try.
As the coronavirus sweeps the nation, infecting and killing thousands,
hospital and nursing home policies intended to slow its spread are blocking
people from being at the bedside of dying loved ones. In some instances, the
virus has devastated otherwise healthy people, forcing families to grapple
with difficult end-of-life conversations far sooner than expected, and
remotely. For others, like Mastromano and her mother, the crisis is
complicating an end-of-life process that’s been in motion for months or
years.
In New York, where intensive care units are packed with coronavirus patients
, most visitors are prohibited. Some nurses say they’ve tried to make time
to hold patients’ hands in their final hours, but overworked medical staff
can’t sit vigil, and as a result, some patients are dying with no one at
their side。
In other places, hospitals and nursing homes are allowing one or two
visitors — but only once a patient is actively dying. That means some
families must decide whether a patient’s spouse or child gets to put on a
medical gown and a plastic face shield to say goodbye in person. With gloves
on, they can hold the patient’s hand or touch their cheek, but they can’t
kiss them, feel their skin or snuggle next to them in bed.
These final moments are crucial, not only for the dying, but for the family
members they leave behind, said Dr. Sandra Gomez, a palliative care
physician in Houston who has spent her career coaching family members on how
to interact with loved ones as they die.
“As a clinician, what I’ve learned is that family presence at the end of
life is very healing for the family,” Gomez said. “And for the patients,
it’s often a time to be a catalyst for reconciliation and a catalyst for
forgiveness.”
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
Last month, Gomez’s 72-year-old father tested positive for the coronavirus,
one of the earliest confirmed cases in Texas, and although he’d been in
fine health before then, he had to be hospitalized. His condition
deteriorated rapidly, Gomez said, and soon she was forced to put her end-of-
life teachings to the test.
She was more fortunate than many, she said. The hospital allowed her to put
on a gown and a mask and spend time with her father in the intensive care
unit before he died.
“I asked him why it had to be him,” Gomez said, crying. “The guy never
won the lottery for anything else. In my heart, I felt him say, ‘I have
work to do. And so do you.’ And that brought me peace.”
She would have been heartbroken, Gomez said, if she hadn’t got that time
with him.
‘I never said goodbye’
Mastromano never wanted to move her mother into a nursing home. For more
than two decades, Coleman lived downstairs from her. Each morning before
Mastromano left for work, her mom would hand her a cup of coffee and tell
her she loved her.
“We were buds,” Mastromano said. “I loved having her close.”
But last year, Coleman’s radiation treatments for lung cancer left her weak
and struggling with heart failure. Mastromano had retired from her job as a
court clerk in Nassau County four years earlier to care for her mother full
time, but as Coleman’s health spiraled and her dementia worsened, it
became too much for her daughter to handle.
Mastromano found a senior home just a few minutes away, a skilled nursing
facility called Maria Regina Residence, and in July, her mother moved in.
Mastromano was there for every meal and returned each night to help her mom
calm down before bed. In the evenings, even with medication, Coleman’s
dementia sometimes made her hallucinate, Mastromano said. Some nights, she
believed she’d been set on fire. Other times, she thought she was being
raped.
“This has been a nightmare,” Mastromano said. “Each day is different, and
each moment in time is different to her mind. At least sometimes, when she
held my hand, she felt comfort.” | l****g
发帖数: 5080 | 2 文章太长。中文这么长我得看一分钟，英文的看3分钟，超过20秒的文章我只看20秒。 | a*********e
发帖数: 490 | 3 文章太长。中文这么长我得看一分钟，英文的看3分钟，超过20秒的文章我只看20秒。
quickly
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【在 d*****o 的大作中提到】
: Death of coronavirus: A daughter fights to say goodbye to her mother
: Deborah Mastromano’s mother was dying, isolated inside a Long Island
: nursing home that had been beset by the coronavirus. But she couldn’t get
: anyone to pick up the phone.
: Mastromano called the nursing desk. She called a supervisor. She called a
: nursing assistant. One staff member answered late last Saturday but quickly
: ended the call. “I can’t talk right now,” the woman said, before hanging
: up.
: Mastromano, 67, knew the workers were stretched thin. It had been nearly a
: month since the home for seniors in Brentwood, New York, had banned visitors
|
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