Carrie Seidman: The unintended victims of COVID-19

Jun. 16--Last September, Isabel "Bette" DeLuccia's seven surviving children and their families traveled to Sarasota from across the country to celebrate her 98th birthday at the memory care facility where she has lived for the past two years with mild dementia.

It was an exuberant occasion, with the music DeLuccia still plays by heart on the piano, a photo booth for capturing new memories and screening of an hourlong family video put together by her daughter, Susan Beausang, a professional photographer from Sarasota.

"My mother thrives on contact with her family and is a very social person," Beausang recalled in an essay she sent me recently. "She absolutely loved it. She was the life of the party and perhaps the last one to call it a night."

Today, DeLuccia is in a rehab facility, partially paralyzed and speaking with great difficulty after suffering a mild stroke two weeks ago. Beauchamp believes the stroke was brought on by the stress and agitation of being unable to see any family members since the state of Florida initiated a complete lockdown of elder care facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 15.

"There is no way to say for certain that the stress was the cause of her stroke, but I know it was a contributing factor," Beausang insists. "I think she knew she had to get out of there and she'd had enough. With every phone call she was begging to be let out of jail. Surely in her mind, she was in prison, or worse."

Beausang chose her mother's assisted living facility (ALF) because it is less than a half mile from her home; prior to the pandemic, her habit was to visit twice daily. But the shutdown of ALFs came without any warning or any opportunity to explain to her mother, who can process information but not retain it, why she could not return.

"You can tell her a million times there's a pandemic and she understands it in the moment, but then the next time you talk to her it's, 'Why aren't you here? Why aren't you coming to see me?'" Beausang says. "All she knows is I don't see her anymore and I hardly call. For her to think I've abandoned her absolutely breaks my heart."

At DeLuccia's facility, families are allowed just two 10-minute phone or Zoom calls a week. (Zoom proved too confusing for DeLuccia.) After months of "begging," Beausang was allowed two "visits" through a window, the glare blocking her mother's ability to see her and a roaring air conditioning unit preventing any communication other than through signs she held up.

DeLuccia kept motioning for her daughter to come inside. When Beausang repeated, for the umpteenth time, that she was not allowed to enter the facility, DeLuccia pleaded, "But I can wait for you outside!"

After Beausang had an Echo Show, a kind of "nanny cam," installed in the room her mother was confined to 24/7, she watched in dismay as DeLuccia "mentally deteriorated," spending hours in bed or sitting in a wheelchair staring vacantly at the walls. Two weeks ago, when a concerned staff member called, she recognized her mother was having a neurological episode and asked that she be hospitalized.

Ironically, during the five days DeLuccia was in the hospital, where visitation had just been eased, Beausang was able to deliver the hug they'd both craved for months. But when DeLuccia was subsequently transferred to a rehabilitation facility, once again Beausang was limited to "window visits."

She's been making those twice a day, hoping to reduce her mother's agitation "so she won't stroke out again." DeLuccia keeps begging to "go home," but "little does she know that home is just another lockdown where I'll be able to see her even less," her daughter says.

As we mark Elder Abuse Awareness Day this week, Beausang can't comprehend how this solitary confinement doesn't "border on elder abuse," particularly for those like her mother, who lack comprehension. How, she asks, can it be permissible under Florida's phased reopening, to get a tattoo, have your hair or nails done or get a massage, and yet not to see an elderly loved one, even in a highly-controlled, masked, socially distanced setting, when all parties involved have tested negative for the coronavirus?

"It's incomprehensible to me that you can't figure out a way to safely have visits," says Beausang. "The mental health of this group is as important as them being protected from the virus. But they've opted for the easy solution rather than the humane one."

Dozens of pleas Beausang has written to Gov. Ron DeSantis have either gone unanswered, or elicited form responses. Implementation of Phase 3 of the Governor's plan for reopening the state, at which point family members could again visit ALFs, is not anticipated before August, and with COVID-19 cases recently on a precipitous rise, it could be much later. Beausang fears that will be too late for her mother.

"There's going to be a breaking point where it isn't the virus that will get them, it will be the abandonment and loneliness," she says. "They are refusing to eat, losing weight, crying out in the night. I don't really believe she can make it another three months. My mother did not contract the virus, but she's a victim of COVID-19 nevertheless."

Contact columnist Carrie Seidman at carrie.seidman@heraldtribune.com or 941-361-4834. Follow her on Twitter @CarrieSeidman and Facebook at facebook.com/cseidman.

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