At first, the body count was stunning. Eventually, it became numbing. Now, nearly a year after America’s first COVID fatality, about 2,400 Orange County residents are dead of coronavirus.
On Friday, Jan. 15, the county reported a one-day record of 82 fatalities. But post-Thanksgiving surge has been compounded by a post-Christmas surge, so that record might not be our last.
Of course, each spike on the graph is more than a number. They are real people who leave behind real families and real grief.
The disease is spawning all manner of real-life nightmares. Health workers are trapped in a cycle of too many commitments and too few hands. Hospitals put up tents for surplus patients. Mortuaries rent refrigerated trucks for extra storage.
The sickest patients endure the terror of the ventilator, knowing being hooked up could be the last stage of life. Some die without having seen a loved one’s face for months.
Meanwhile, the disease is reaching new people. Younger patients increasingly are showing up in intensive care units, frontline workers observe. “We still get more geriatric patients, by far. But there has been an influx of people ages 30 to 60,” said respiratory therapist Michelle Davis.
Recently, Davis intubated a 33-year-old man. “He said, ‘Please don’t let me die. I want to see my four-year-old son grow up,’” Davis recalled. “It was gut-wrenching. I think of my own little children.”
The man didn’t survive.
The cycle feels like it’s creeping ever closer. Last spring, as coronavirus crawled through California, many people could not name a friend or relative who had contracted the disease. Now, COVID isn’t so abstract.
“We have made the huge leap from ‘I know someone who had it’ to ‘I know someone who died of it,’” said registered nurse Jennifer Dagarag, head of grief support for St. Irenaeus Catholic Church in Cypress.
Numbers can’t capture that. So what follows are voices — from health workers, mourners, funeral providers and a grief counselor — to explain the ravages of coronavirus.
On the line
Marlene Tucay, registered nurse at UCI Medical Center: “Every time we step on campus, we have to psych ourselves up to help our patients as best we can – and to help each other, too. I can see it on my coworkers’ faces. We are in a dire situation. I hear nurses say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
“Before the surge, we had about 60 COVID patients on any given day. Now it’s 170-plus. We are working 50 hours a week. The hospital has hired traveling nurses, but there aren’t enough for all the beds we’ve added in the mobile units.
“We see the scared look on our patients faces – especially when they are placed on oxygen. Patients can deteriorate quickly. They come in short of breath, and the next thing you know they are having a hard time breathing and we have to go to another mode of treatment.
“It’s so hard to give them assurance. You don’t have an answer when they ask, ‘Am I going to get better?’ That’s what we hear all day long: ‘Will I be OK?’ Patients cry. They are so afraid. All we can do is say, ‘Hang in there. Everyone is rooting for you.’
“We tell their families, ‘We are doing the best we can.’ We don’t want to be negative, but we also don’t want to give false hope.”
Michelle Davis, respiratory therapist at West Anaheim Medical Center:
“Because of the surge, every day is 10 times harder than the day before. It is so emotionally and physically draining.
“I should oversee no more than five patients on ventilators at once. I now have 10 to 12. People on ventilators are what’s called ‘total care’ patients who must be cared for constantly. We have to put them on their stomachs to improve oxygenation, and then put them on their backs so their skin doesn’t break down.“We now have about three patients a shift dying. My manager recently texted me before I came in: ‘It’s a little slower today because eight people died yesterday.’
“Prior to COVID, we mostly got elderly patients with dementia. We didn’t hear a lot of last words. But now it’s a regular occurrence because patients are younger.
“Recently, a 46-year-old man’s last words were to me. He said, ‘I need to rest.’ He seemed to be doing OK, but then he had an aneurysm from a blood clot that went to his brain.
“All day long, we listen to family members cry about their loved ones on FaceTime. That may be the hardest part of our jobs.
“I cry driving home. I don’t even turn on music. I just want silence.”
Devastation and bereavement
Nancy Beacham Duremdes, whose husband of 32 years, Huntington Beach resident Lazaro Duremdes, 64, died on Jan. 3:
“My husband was extremely healthy, and now he is the first person I know to die of coronavirus.
“He worked in patient intake at a medical clinic that had an outbreak. He left work early Nov. 17 and checked himself into the hospital. I never really got to see him again.
“After a few weeks, (doctors) decided they had been through all the COVID treatments they could give him and released him to a rehab facility in Santa Ana. It’s normally a place for people recovering from broken hips, not COVID. I did not think he was ready to leave the hospital, but I had no say in the matter.
“I wanted to see him, so I went to the hospital on the day he was released and waited for two hours in the parking lot. They were triaging patients in a tent. There were so many people. It was awful. No wonder they wanted my husband’s bed.
“Finally, he was brought out to an ambulance. I was able to see him for only a few seconds. All I could do was touch his foot. He was so sedated that he didn’t know I was there.
“I kept calling (the rehab center) and they said call back later. The doctor finally returned my call after several days. He said, ‘I go to six other clinics a day.’
“When he went back on 100% oxygen, I said, ‘You guys are not taking care of him. I want him out of there.’
“I got him into St. Joseph Hospital. A doctor there told me, ‘Your husband is dying.’ His airways were full of pneumonia.
“St. Joseph was really kind to us. They let my son, daughter and me in his room. We all prayed together and played his favorite song – Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears In Heaven.’ He opened his eyes for a moment. It was peaceful.
“My husband came here from Okinawa, Japan, when he was 19. Most of his family is still there. It was really difficult telling them he died. I called his brother, who drove to their mom’s house to tell her. I am sending his ashes to them.
“We met in the Bay area when we were both working in the computer industry. He proposed to me at my father’s grave site in Riverside National Cemetery so my dad could ‘give us permission.’ He had a very sweet personality and a good sense of humor.
“I went to the (Huntington Beach) Pier Plaza with friends last week for solace. I told my husband, ‘Give me a sign that you’re OK.’ A man with a guitar suddenly started playing ‘Tears In Heaven.’”
Kelly Adelle, who lost her father, Garden Grove resident Don Maakestad, 82, on Jan. 8:
“My dad was super tough. He mowed his back yard and put up his own Christmas lights. He’d been a police officer in Needles, and then went into the automotive industry. But when he found out he had coronavirus, this tough man cried.
“Here’s the kicker: My mom passed away one year ago. I’m glad she didn’t have to see any of this – his death, the whole coronavirus tragedy.
“Dad barely left his house (during the epidemic). On Dec. 21, he went to the doctor – that might have been where he was exposed. He started feeling tired and had body aches on Christmas Eve. We took him to urgent care Christmas morning and he tested positive. On New Year’s Day, he fell really ill and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.
“There were so many patients – it seemed like he was just another number. One time when I called to check on him, a nurse said, ‘I cannot talk right now. I have 20 other people in the same boat as you.’
“My dad got worse over the next few days. It felt like we were almost discouraged from putting him on a ventilator. They told us he would suffer. They upped the morphine without consulting us. Elderly people have been dehumanized by coronavirus.
“He had 11 kids and 19 grandchildren. He was the one who held all of us together. We lost the glue of our family.”
Samantha Chagollan, lost her 89-year-old father, Huntington Beach resident Manny Chagollan, in July. Like Adelle, she feels that the elderly have been minimized during the epidemic:
“When I tell people my father died of cornavirus, the first thing they ask me is, ‘How old was he?’ And then they say, ‘Oh, OK,’ as if that makes it all right that he died. It’s dismissive. There’s a box people can put the elderly in to make death acceptable.
“Dad was in a memory care facility. My mother, who was married to him for 57 years, had not been able to see him since lockdown except on FaceTime. She’s having a hard time. It’s surreal to her.
“The first time I had seen him in four months was when he was in the hospital dying. He hadn’t eaten in five days. He didn’t recognize me at first because of all the PPE. But then we were able to have a good conversation for half an hour. We talked about him walking me down the sandy aisle at my wedding in Hawaii. He said, ‘I have the greatest family.’
“My dad had a wonderful life. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He was multi-talented and had many different kinds of jobs. In 1990, my parents opened an art shop, Art Waves, in Huntington Beach. He was a huge Dodgers fan. He loved music and cinema.
“I keep an eye on the daily numbers of coronavirus deaths in Orange County. I am blown away at how they just go up and up and up. Each one of those numbers is a story; each one of those numbers is a family left grieving.”
Last Responders
Erin McCormick, controller, McCormick & Son Mortuaries in Laguna Hills and Laguna Beach:
“We call ourselves ‘the last responders.’ Death isn’t a topic that anyone wants to talk about, but death is part of life.
“Since the coronavirus surge, we are serving more than twice the number of families that we were a few months ago. During summer, two out of 10 people who came in had died of coronavirus. Now it’s nine out of 10. We rented a refrigerated truck as a back up.
“We are working 16-hour days. It’s taking a toll on everyone in the industry. Embalmers are exposed to the virus and must wear full PPE.
“I have many words for people who are dismissive of coronavirus, but I will just say they are mistaken. Numbers don’t lie.”
Joe Fitzgerald, CEO of O’Connor Mortuary in Laguna Hills:
“Typically, we have about 100 families a month. We’re on track for 175 in January. Many of these families have not seen their loved ones in weeks or months because they were not allowed into the skilled nursing facilities and hospitals. We end up being the place for them to say good-bye. If ever there was a time we were living our purpose, it is now.”
Shoulders
Jennifer Dagarag, registered nurse and head of grief support at St. Irenaeus Catholic Church in Cypress:
“Coronavirus presents a more complicated grief. People are grieving at home, in isolation. The natural support system of friends and out-of-town family is not there.
“Often, families have not seen their loved ones in person for weeks prior to the passing. Or, they see the person for the first time right before death. That can be shocking – the person might not look anything like himself. Nor is it a natural way to spend your last moments with someone while covered in PPE.
“When a spouse dies, there is a secondary loss. Not only have you lost your mate, you have lost everything he or she did around the house – whether it was the laundry or the yard work. And with coroanvirus, friends and relatives can’t help you to the degree they could have otherwise.
“Adult children are also undergoing a lot of stress. Normally, siblings can come in from out of town to help out, but now people aren’t traveling. Everything falls on the adult child who lives nearby.“If you still don’t appreciate the enormity of coronvirus, that just means it hasn’t touched you yet. All you have to do is drive by a hospital with tents and refrigerated trucks out front.
“We tell people to come as they are to counseling. You do not have to be composed. Tears are a form of prayer.”
Dagarag hosts group grief counseling sessions online through the national program GriefShare. Participants need not be parishioners of the church. For more information, call 714-826-0760.
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Coronavirus: ‘Each one of those numbers is a story, a family left grieving’ - East Bay Times
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