Nursing homes reopen to joy and grief
Even as the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned this week of a possible fourth coronavirus surge, nursing homes are so far holding steady, reporting drastically fewer cases and deaths since the start of vaccinations. The improved outlook means that across the country, people are once again greeting loved ones in nursing homes with bouquets of flowers, with homemade pudding and lemon bars, with news from children and grandchildren.
Yet the swinging open of the doors has also exposed new consequences of a pandemic that has killed more than 179,000 residents and employees of longterm care facilities and left many others withering in isolation.
“A year lost is a big loss,” said Pauline Boss, a family therapist and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota.
Nursing homes now offer an early glimpse at what everyone may face in trying to go back to normal after a year of separation and stillness. Some reunions may be tinged with grief, others with reminders of all that has changed.
Boss said the experience of families coming back together a year into the pandemic reminded her of research she had done on husbands returning home to wives after war, or cancer patients who suddenly learn they are in remission.
“Things don’t quite get back to normal,” she said.
Nursing homes have been centers of the pandemic since the beginning, when an outbreak was first identified at a facility outside Seattle. Across the country, one-third of all coronavirus deaths have been linked to nursing homes.
As a geriatrician in San Francisco, Dr. Teresa Palmer, 68, was well positioned to advocate for her 103-year-old mother, Berenice De Luca Palmer, after federal officials recommended in March 2020 that nursing homes shut down to visitors. Palmer did local news interviews, checked on her mother often over Zoom and even accompanied her to occasional doctor’s appointments.
But when Palmer finally walked into her mother’s room recently, she was shocked to find that her mother, who had shrunk to 98 pounds, was spending all of her time in bed.
After three days, Palmer took her mother to a hospital, where she said her mother was told she had an advanced form of pancreatic cancer.
“I’m sad and angry,” said Palmer, who has found herself reflecting on all that her mother missed in the past year. Trips to the beach. Sunflowers in bloom. Family meals complete with pasta, wine and the elder Palmer, the matriarch of their Italian family, presiding over the dinner table.
“It’s the quality time that has been lost,” said Palmer, who has since brought her mother home for hospice care.