A Gardens celebration
103-year-old among those who recovered from COVID-19
It was an emotional Wednesday morning for many of the residents and employees at Lindsay Gardens Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility, as over 30 residents and staff members were celebrated for their recoveries from COVID-19, including Marie Diaz who turns 104-years-old on Friday.
For over a month, after the pandemic hit the facility pretty heavily, residents and some employees had not seen their families. To keep the virus from spreading and to protect their residents, Lindsay Gardens closed their facility to visitors and focused on nursing their residents back to full health.
Crystal Mendoza, a
Lindsay Gardens caretaker who spent many days and nights in the COVID-19 unit with residents who had tested positive, said that it was beyond amazing to see all of the residents who had recovered doing well again.
“I spent a majority of my time in the COVID unit,” said Mendoza. “I spent days and nights in there with them. COVID is very difficult to treat because you could have no symptoms in the beginning, and then come day seven, eight or nine, then it hits you. My main focus was that my
patients didn’t get any worse, so treating them right away and sending them to the hospital, if needed, was my main focus. Some patients had really bad symptoms and some patients had no symptoms. It really varied. It was a matter of assessing them every day and, if we saw any slight decline, doing something about it fast.
“My staff was beyond amazing when it came to all of this. We really worked together as a team and became so much closer throughout this whole experience. I am so thankful for each and every one of them.”
Just around 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the recovery celebration began. With siren blaring and lights flashing, the Lindsay Fire Department drove through the Lindsay Gardens driveway with huge smiles on their faces. After the fire truck pulled away, the long line of waiting cars that had gathered down the street, slowly began rolling by the residents who had all come to sit along the sidewalk to celebrate their recoveries.
Emotions ran high as people began to pass their dearly missed family members. Many of the Lindsay Gardens employees had happy tears rolling down their cheeks at the sight of their residents faces lighting up. One man stood near the street calling for his mom and waving a sign that said “Sosa We Love You.” When his mom saw him she enthusiastically waved at her son and even removed her face mask to show him her huge smile.
Dozens of cars rolled passed the Lindsay Gardens facility, honking and shouting as they passed each resident. The Loyalty Car Club did a special drive-by, complete with their old classic cars, which had some of the Lindsay Gardens residents holding up their thumbs up as they rolled by.
“My patients are my everything,” said Mendoza. “They literally are. I love them. It was nice to be able to be there for them during their hard times, and it’s so beautiful to see them when they were at their worst to now seeing them at their best.”