Fairlawn resident Jackie Shama celebrated her 96th birthday Sunday.
The woman who had been a “Rosie the Riveter” at Goodyear during World War II, whose favorite president was Franklin Roosevelt and who had been an avid roller skater has been in the battle of her life of late — and she’s winning.
She contracted COVID-19 so severely her birthday almost didn’t happen.
That it did is a story of faith, family, and fight, says her daughter, Kim Shama-Hanna.
“I caught it first, or we caught it at the same time,” said Shama-Hanna, who became sick about May 25. She was tested on the 27th and received a positive result the next day.
By the end of the week, her mother had symptoms, too. Another daughter, Debbie Shama-Davis, and her husband, Steve Davis, took their mother for a test.
“We knew she had been exposed to Kim,” Shama-Davis said. They drove Shama to Rite Aid and spent two hours in a car together. Davis later came down with COVID-19. His wife did not.
That night, even before the test results came in, Jackie Shama fell down, and she was treated at a local hospital for the fall. While she was there, the sisters said, they couldn’t see their mother. It was the hospital’s coronavirus protocol, and it wasn’t the first time their access was limited during their mother’s illness.
On June 2 or 3, the then 95-year-old matriarch was sent to a local nursing home for care.
Shama-Hanna, meanwhile, was still fighting off her infection. She contracted pneumonia. At one point she hallucinated that ghosts were flying in and out of her window.
She remembered events and people from her past that she hadn’t forgiven. She made sure to do so, and reconnected with her faith in the process.
Davis, too, was fighting COVID-19, but his symptoms were not as severe.
“My chest felt like there was a tight band around it,” he said. He was tested at a local hospital and received treatment that included steroids.
But Shama’s case was the most severe. At the nursing home, her daughters were not allowed into her room.
“We put chairs outside her window,” Shama-Davis said. “We would talk to her through the window every day.”
But her condition deteriorated. She wasn’t eating and drinking enough. She became lethargic and pale and the sisters began to worry.
On June 8, Shama-Davis went to see her mother. She hadn’t answered the phone, and Shama-Davis was getting nervous.
“I’m standing outside of her window,” Shama-Davis said. She looked through the blinds.
Her mother had an arm hanging off the bed like she had tried to answer the phone but couldn’t due to exhaustion.
Shama-Hanna called her mother’s doctor and said she wanted her back in the hospital. That’s when the fight part of the story really kicked in. In Shama-Hanna’s words, she raised a stink. The nursing home finally agreed to transfer Jackie Shama back to the hospital, taking four long hours to do it.
“Her skin was gray at that time and it was sunk in,” Shama-Hanna said.
Shama-Davis said she thought her mother was going to die that night. The other sisters and Davis agreed.
Shama-Hanna added faith to the fight, singing “Amazing Grace” to her mother. She made sure her mother was covered with a blanket.
“I was angry that she was in that shape,” she said.
After an IV was put in, Shama-Hanna said, “Her skin went from gray to pink again.”
But the sisters’ battle to get the best care for their mother wasn’t over.
“After they admitted her, they called the next day and wanted to do hospice care,” Cindy Shama said.
So the sisters met. They decided to keep fighting for their mom, rejecting hospice care and instructing the doctors to treat their mother and give her the best chance to recover.
“They were treating her like she was a terminal cancer patient,” Shama-Hanna said. “We were fighting with the doctors to give her steroids and another IV. ... They were so quick to think about comfort care.”
With steroids and an IV, Shama began a real recovery at home. She started eating and drinking again. Last week, she took a few steps as her energy began to return. On Saturday, she went on a car ride with Shama-Hanna for the first time during her recovery.
Shama, though, still has a ways to go. She still doesn’t have the energy to engage in a conversation, but she does respond — briefly — to questions.
How do you feel?
“Like a woman,” she said.
What do you want for your birthday?
“My three daughters.”
Full Article & Source:
Family fights for mom, 95, as she slowly overcomes coronavirus
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