The next time you don’t wear a mask or call COVID-19 a hoax, please think of my mother
On Friday, March 27th at 1:48 p.m., I received a rare daytime text from my mother. It read: “I’m in the drive through line to get tested for COVID.”
What? Why? A wave of emotions overcame me as the images on the nightly news included someone I knew. It was still early in the pandemic and we knew little about this invisible enemy. It’s hard to know how long my 67-year-old mother was sick since she dismissed the early signs as allergies and worked at the local community college as a sociology professor and director of the women’s center until March 20 when she finally was moved to remote instruction. Earlier that week she texted a friend to say “If I have teach like this in the fall I might retire.” She was just two years away from retirement.
The next day I checked on her and she had a fever of 102.5. Her test results took five days. She slept a little but poorly. My brother delivered meals to her door and checked on her daily. On April 1 her results confirmed what we suspected — she was positive for COVID-19. The next evening my brother found her disoriented and slow to respond to commands. A family friend who is a nurse was also there and called 911. Her blood oxygen level was 65 percent and fever still over 100. Within 48 hours she was on a ventilator and on April 25 she died. She had been off the ventilator for a week but her organs and body were too tired from the fight to live. We celebrated her 68th birthday via Zoom with family, and my last words to her was goodbye through a computer screen.
This week it’s been four months since she died and five months since she tested positive. It’s also another PTSD moment as Saturday, Aug. 29 is the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina while storms rattle the nerves and coast of Louisianians. Mom was a fighter. She bragged about surviving Betsy and rebuilt after Katrina. Her Gentilly home had five feet of water in it for three weeks. It was three and half years before she moved back into her renovated home. She was a proud homeowner and survivor.
My mom was born and raised in New Orleans, La., in 1952. Our family settled there in 1721 from Alsace Lorraine on the border between present day France and Germany. She was a strong, tough woman who fought against injustices and taught her students to be involved. She cared more about helping others than herself, which ultimately killed her. Where could she have gotten the virus? How long did she expose others?
Since her death we’ve learned so much. I take my temperature daily as well as my oxygen level. Yet we act like it’s over or we deserve a vacation, trip, or go anywhere and do anything because it’s political or a hoax. It’s real, deadly and most of all our humanity is being tested. Masks are not debatable because they work. Some argue for herd immunity to get it over with sooner or ‘we can’t destroy our economy to keep a few people alive.’ Our nation has no plan and instead of unifying our fight against the virus, we argue and challenge each decision.
The number of deaths in just a few months confirm it’s not a flu nor is it a hoax. It’s deadly and if we don’t start to give up some of our “rights” then it will be your loved one whose obituary will be written. Six feet apart or six feet under ... it’s your call.
I’m not ok and we can’t get back to normal. I can’t avoid the one thing that killed my mother. It dominates the news, changed how my children go to school, altered my work schedule and everywhere I go I am reminded of her death. I can’t move on because I am constantly reminded of the virus. Please focus on the long term by doing your part to mask up Kentucky. Wash your hands, sanitize, maintain social distance, and most of all think about others as if they were your mother in our community.
Matthew Deffendall is a native of New Orleans, LA, and has lived in Lexington, KY since 2000. He is an academic advisor and adjunct instructor at the University of Kentucky.
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 11:53 AM.