Family Prepares To Celebrate Mother's Day After Mom Recovers From COVID-19
CHICAGO (CBS) -- One of the more distressing things about battling COVID-19 is the isolation required for patients in hospitals, but one family is preparing to celebrate Mother's Day with a woman who felt her daughters' presence at her bedside each day.
"I was in a very dark place," said Jeanne Hansen. "Very dark."
She had a severe battle with COVID-19 and was hospitalized for 23 days, isolated, intubated and in the ICU.
"They said I was at death's door," Hansen said. "I was ready to give up."
Jeanne survived thanks to heroic medical staff and the technology of a hospital tablet.
"Once I was able to get FaceTime with my kids, that's what turned me around," she said.
To ease the isolation required to fight COVID 19, staff at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville began safely connecting patients and families virtually.
"When we started it out we didn't know how it was going to work," said Amy Case.
Hansen found the strength to push forward after connecting with her oldest daughter Michele in Iowa.
"She said, 'Mom, what's wrong?' And I said 'Done. I just can't do this anymore.' And she said, 'No that's not you. You are a fighter,'" Hansen said.
The sessions gave comfort to family, too, like Hansen's younger daughter Rebecca Haynes, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska.
"I was ready to go bust down the door and see her, and I couldn't," said Haynes. "You just feel really helpless."
"I couldn't tell if she was hearing me or understanding me, and I said, 'Mom, can you give me a wink if you hear me?' And she winked at me right away," Haynes said. "That wink said it all."
Haynes said her mother was comforting her.
"She didn't know it, but she was," she said.
And now with Mother's Day approaching, they are a family moving forward.
Mother's Day is going to be a special gift this year," Haynes said. "She's the best mom ever."
