FORT THOMAS – She recalls extreme pain. Her own scream. An inability to move forward.
And later in her 48-day hospital stay, a "scary, dark haze as my lungs fought to find air."
Neaoma Clephane of Northern Kentucky was a COVID-19 patient at St. Elizabeth-Fort Thomas hospital in July and August and part of September 2020. She was a young mom of three children, including an infant, away from her family once her husband carried her out of their Independence home and rushed her to the hospital.
In a letter to St. Elizabeth Healthcare, she thanks "Andrea" for pulling her through.
Andrea Owens is a St. Elizabeth nurse who, with her colleagues, has cared for hundreds of patients with COVID-19 and seen too many die. She, Clephane and others spoke and prayed Thursday, one year and 12 hours to the date and time that St. Elizabeth's first COVID-19 patient entered the Fort Thomas hospital, March 18, 2020.
It was time, hospital officials decided, to stop for a moment. To remember. To pray. To know that this pandemic journey will, someday, end.
"The love that we saw, the bonds that we made with people are unforgettable," Owens said Thursday.
Garren Colvin, president and CEO of St Elizabeth Healthcare, told several nurses, a few doctors, a few other staff members who joined the memorial (to keep a safe distance, they kept the attending group small), "You've permitted so much healing. Make sure you take the time to heal yourselves."
The Fort Thomas hospital became an all-novel coronavirus site last year, admitting and caring for, to date, 2,936 patients with COVID-19.
Colvin had trouble holding back tears as he recalled visiting there one day when some 35 Rosedale Green nursing home patients were being treated. "To see the scared faces of those patients, but to see their hope when they saw the smiling faces" of caregivers, he said. And his voice cracked.
Owens said she is just one of "everyone," from employees who took COVID-19 patients' food orders to respiratory therapists, who have committed themselves to their sick charges.
Hospital officials said the pandemic has required all 10,000-plus St. Elizabeth Healthcare employees to pitch in. An Infectious Disease Response Team, at times draped in layers of gowns, hoods, masks and shields and three pairs of gloves on each hand, led care and at first, training of staff.
Many employees moved outside their usual roles to do other tasks: folding sheets, organizing gowns and other supplies, screening each other and others with temperature-taking wands, performing specialized cleaning tasks, testing for the virus and, most recently, vaccinating. After this weekend, the St. Elizabeth Healthcare staff will have vaccinated more than 70,000 people in the community.
As of Wednesday, 5,046 Kentucky residents had died from the novel coronavirus, according to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
"We have not forgotten the lost," Owens said as she prayed before the group. "They are forever in our hearts."
Owens was selected this year as one caregiver of seven recipients of the Florence Nightingale Award for "excellence in nursing" during the pandemic. She accepted the award on behalf of the entire St. Elizabeth Healthcare team.
It wasn't just she, Owens said, who held patients’ hands, attempted to "be their family" while they were hospitalized and guided families through a devastating time.
Her father-in-law contracted the virus in March 2020, and Owens says she had some insight into the plight of families who wait for what seems like forever to get updates from medical staff.
She said she will always be a friend of some of these families, and she is certain she’ll stay friends with some of the patients who made it through.
Like Neaoma Clephane.
"We really developed a bond through our faith," Owens said.
Clephane wrote about Owens while she was still in the hospital. She was recorded in a video reading the letter, which she used to recommend Owens for recognition.
Clephane said that she was determined to pay tribute to the woman who stood by her when her husband, Mike Clephane, could not.
And so she described in that letter that, early in her hospital stay, she experienced weakness and pain so overwhelming she couldn't make it to the bathroom.
Owens was there, said Clephane. "I heard her say, 'I got you.' "
And when she had to be taken to the intensive care unit, Owens came with her.
"I felt her gloved hand in mine," Clephane said. "And I heard her say, 'I won't leave you.' "
Tears spilled from Owens' eyes as she prayed before her colleagues on Thursday. She managed to control her voice as she played guitar and sang a hymn, “How Great Thou Art.”
"The thing I learned through COVID," she said after the memorial, "is that we have to keep our hope alive."
St. Elizabeth Healthcare has published a video of the full memorial, "COVID One Year Later: A Day of Remembrance and Healing," on its St. Elizabeth Facebook page and other social media platforms.
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