‘Varying levels of sickness’
Retired teacher, wife were on ventilators. She is recovering; he did not.
The night of April 16, after nurses at Porter Regional Hospital spoke with the administration, Scott Hughes received permission to see his father for just a few minutes.
John Hughes, 74, a retired longtime teacher in the Valparaiso elementary schools, was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit and had tested positive for COVID-19. Doctors had told Scott Hughes and his two brothers that they didn’t think their father would make it through the night.
In another ICU room, also on a ventilator and also with the new coronavirus, was Janet Hughes, 73, John Hughes’ wife of almost 50 years. Scott Hughes was not allowed to go into her room during his brief visit but could see her through a glass wall. She appeared to be doing better than his father.
His two brothers, Kyle and Bryan, and Bryan’s wife lived with his parents in Valparaiso. They had experienced what Scott Hughes described as “varying levels of sickness,” likely from COVID-19 they thought, though nothing near the level of what his parents were going through.
Because they were not considered a
high risk, they were not tested and quarantined themselves.
Scott Hughes, the information technology and communications director for Valparaiso Nazarene Church, dropped food and other necessities off for his brothers and sister-in-law, who have since recovered.
“It is a lot. It’s a difficult time for everybody and that just kind of compounds the situation. Initially you think they’re going to the hospital and they’ll be taken care of,” he said of his parents. “You don’t expect to lose both parents at one time, but I know that was a real thought for us.”
John Hughes died the morning of April 17 from the new coronavirus, making him the third Porter County resident and first from Center Township to die from the disease. Janet Hughes was removed from a ventilator on Sunday and is getting better, her family said.
Monday, over the phone while she was still recovering from sedation, Scott Hughes told his mother that his father had died. She didn’t really get emotional about the loss of her husband until Tuesday night because of her own ongoing recovery.
“We’ve all had the chance to mourn and she hasn’t,” Scott Hughes said, adding that process began for him and the rest of the family the night before his father died. “It is difficult because she is there. We can talk to her over the phone, but we can’t be in the room holding her hand.”
Though John and Janet Hughes were both born in Gary and grew up in Hobart, Scott Hughes said, they didn’t meet until later. Both graduated from Indiana State University, and Janet Hughes taught in Portage before having a family, and then worked as a librarian at Central and Northview elementary schools in Valparaiso.
John Hughes started his career teaching at Hayes Leonard Elementary School before moving on to Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, leading fifth grade classrooms in both buildings. He spent just over 42 years in the classroom before retiring nine years ago.
Jeffrey Helmers taught fifth grade with John Hughes from 2005 until he retired, and continued meeting for Friday morning breakfast at Schoop’s with him and Gary Webster, another longtime Valparaiso elementary educator who died in 2014, when he was teaching at Cooks Corners.
“What can I say about John as a teacher? He gave himself to his students completely. He routinely joined the students at recess. He had a seemingly endless list of projects and fun activities that he deployed, to make school both fun and educational for his students,” Hellmers said in an email.
Hughes focused on students as real people, Hellmers said, and when he felt there was too much testing or too many attempts to standardize everything, he said “They’re not robots!”
“He had a deep understanding of the differences between children and he did everything he could to build on each child’s individual abilities,” Hellmers said.
Scott Hughes said his brother, Bryan, took their father to the emergency room at Porter Regional on April 1, though his father hadn’t been feeling well for several days. The family took Janet Hughes to the hospital the following day.
“We don’t know exactly when they had the first symptoms but it would have been earlier that week, at the end of March,” he said, adding both his parents received COVID-19 tests because, given their age, they were in a high-risk group.
The positive tests for the couple were back in a few days. Janet Hughes spent about two weeks on a ventilator, as did her husband.
Scott Hughes said his family received tremendous support from the community and Valparaiso Nazarene Church, including offers of prayers. While his mother had her ups and downs, she slowly improved, though his father continued to decline.
“Going up to see him was a good thing for me,” he said, “even just leaving the room knowing my dad will be in a better place.”
He expected recovery for his mother to be lengthy but for her to be OK, but did not have the same expectations for his father.
Visiting his father in the ICU was surreal, he said, adding that just being allowed in “was a huge blessing.” The usually busy hospital was strangely quiet.
His temperature was checked, among other screening measures, and he suited up in a mask and other protective gear.
“It just kind of reminded me that each time a nurse or doctor are walking into their rooms, they’re very carefully preparing because they know they’re being exposed,” Scott Hughes said.
His mother continues to grow stronger and is doing light physical therapy, though she remains in the ICU for the time being. He is not sure if she will be moved to another floor and expects she likely will be sent to rehab to rebuild her strength.
Though he has been talking to a local funeral home, funeral details for his father are still up in the air, in part because he wants his mother to recover further before the family talks to her about it. Any funeral would be bound by the strictures of social distancing as well.
“The timing is a little bit weird,” he said.