A 90-year-old woman in Washington state staved off death after contracting the coronavirus and wishing her family members a last goodbye.
“She has always been a survivor and very determined,” said Cami Neidigh, one of the children of Geneva Wood, who survived the virus, according to Fox News.
Wood, a great-great-grandmother of three, contracted COVID-19 in early March while she was living at The Life Care Center where at least 35 people associated with the nursing home have died from the virus. She promptly went to Harborview Medical Center to get tested.
“My heart sank when I heard that she had tested positive. I was so sure she would be OK. She had fought so hard to come back from the stroke. How could it be possible that a virus was going to take her out?” Neidigh said, adding that she worried her mother “would give up” while isolated from her family.
Eventually, doctors got Wood’s family to come see her as they thought she was dying.
“It was a gift and, at the same time, cruel. We could touch her hand, rub her arm through the gloves. No hugging. Talk softly, slowly, and comfort her. Let her know we were all OK and not to worry about us,” Neidigh said. “She wanted to tell each of us goodbye, tell us how proud she was of us.”
However, Wood suddenly improved, and doctors declared her “coronavirus free.”
“Getting this virus is not a death sentence for the elderly or anybody,” Neidigh said. “It’s a wake-up call to take care of each other, find positive ways to help each other out. People want feel-good stories to give them guidance out of the gloom and doom.”
She said her mother had given “the middle finger to a killer virus.”
So far, there have been over 43,000 cases of the coronavirus in the United States, where it has killed almost 600 people. Washington has been one of the states hit hardest, with 75 deaths.
