When Mary Daniel’s husband was first diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 59, she promised that she would never leave his side. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
For seven years, Mary visited Steve every night at the Rosecastle at Deerwood nursing home in Jacksonville, Fla. They would eat dinner together, then snuggle up in bed and watch TV until he drifted off to sleep.
But that soothing routine came to a screeching halt on March 11 when the facility went into lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“I promised Steve … that I would be by his side for the rest of his life, that I would walk this walk with him, and I would hold his hand every step of the way. And I didn’t do that for 114 days,” Mary, 66, told As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner.
“I was terrified that when I did get back to him, it would be too late for him to know me and to know my love.”
After nearly four devastating months, she is finally able to visit Steve again after the facility offered her a job as a part-time dishwasher.
Mary and Steve Daniel on their wedding day. ‘I was terrified that when I did get back to him, it would be too late for him to know me and to know my love,’ she said. (Submitted by Mary Daniel)
When Mary first learned she would no longer be able to visit Steve, she panicked.
“He does not have the ability to understand the virus or why I’m not there, so I was extremely worried about him being confused, being lonely,” she said. “And I was really, really concerned that it would lead to a decline in his physical and mental state.”
At first, she says she tried to be patient. In those early days of the pandemic, she and the Rosecastle staff held onto the hope that it would all be over in a couple of weeks.
“As time went on, as days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, I started to get a little bit more vocal about coming up with some alternatives because this was not working for Steve or for the other residents in his facility,” she said.
Mary Daniel washes dishes for a few hours two days a week, and then spends time with her husband in his room. (Rosecastle at Deerwood/The Associated Press)
She tried every alternative to in-person visits. First, she set up video calls.
“But he is not vocal. He talks quite a bit, but is not able to articulate anything, so you can’t understand what he’s saying. So having a phone conversation or a video call was just confusing to him,” she said.
“I would ask him questions and try to have some sort of conversation, but that just wasn’t possible. You know, things like I would blow him kisses and he didn’t understand what was going on. He would lean down and kiss the tablet because it just didn’t make any sense to him.”
Then she tried window visits — which has been a balm for other families with loved ones in long-term care facilities. But, again, Steve’s dementia added a layer of confusion that made the process unbearable.
“We did two window visits, but he cried the entire time. So I made up my mind on Father’s Day — that was the last one that we did — that I was just not going to do that anymore. It was just too painful for him and too painful for me to watch him cry,” she said.
A heartfelt reunion
During the 114-day stretch, Mary emailed the state’s governor every day, along with anyone else who would listen. She joined a support group on Facebook, “Caregivers for Compromise Because Isolation Kills Too,” and has become an advocate.
She begged the facility to find a workaround. She offered to volunteer there as a caregiver. She proposed bringing in therapy dogs for the residents.
Then, finally, Rosecastle called and offered her a job.
“I couldn’t believe it when they called completely out of the blue,” Mary said. “And I said, ‘I’ll take it. Dishwashing it is.'”
Mary hugs Steve for the first time in 114 days on July 3. ‘When he turned around and saw me, the first thing he said was Mary,’ she said. ‘And I knew that I had gotten back to him in time.’ (Submitted by Mary Daniel)
Kelley Withrow, the facility’s executive director, stressed that the visitation ban is necessary but acknowledged it’s “been hard on families and residents alike, so we felt creative solutions were necessary, especially in the case of Mary and Steve.”
Mary takes precautions when she goes to her second job at Rosecastle. She was in a parking lot waiting for the results of a rapid COVID-19 test while she spoke to As It Happens on Thursday— and it wasn’t her first.
She also participated in 20 hours of video training on hazardous waste disposal and food safety in preparation for the job.
But it was all worth it when she visited Steve after her first shift. When she opened his room door, she says she was seized with fear that she was too late, that he wouldn’t remember her.
“When he turned around and saw me, the first thing he said was ‘Mary,'” she said. “And I knew that I had gotten back to him in time.”
Dishes, dinner, TV
The couple have since settled back into their old routine. Two days a week, Mary leaves her day job of running a medical billing company and heads over to Rosecastle to wash dishes for a couple hours. Then she goes to Steve’s room and they watch TV together in bed until he falls asleep.
“I’m only there two days a week, but it’s enough to let him know that I’m there and that I will be back,” she said.
“It’s just absolutely precious for me to be able to touch him, to comfort him, to lay down beside him.”
It’s a comfort that she wants for other families and caregivers too — especially those whose loved ones have dementia. She proposed alternatives such as increased testing, or outdoor visitation.
“I absolutely understand why this was done, and it is being done with the best of intentions. The problem is, we are isolating these people to save them. But the isolation is going to kill them, too. They are dying by themselves. And I think that’s incredibly cruel,” she said.
On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was considering loosening the state’s ban on visitations at nursing homes for loved ones who can take a rapid-response test for the virus before entering the facility. Since then, Mary says she has been in touch with his staff to talk about possible solutions to bring families together.
“Dementia patients need love and they need touch. They need the presence of other people or their brain just dies much quicker than it normally would,” Mary said.
“I’m not washing dishes for the money. I’m washing dishes for that.”
Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from The Associated Press. Interview with Mary Daniel produced by Morgan Passi.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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