After 70 years of marriage, what’s several days at the hospital with
COVID-19?
Dolores, 88, and Louis Amen, 90, recently notched overcoming the coronavirus
together to their lengthy list of marital accomplishments.
Dolores has a history of pneumonia. Louis recently suffered from heart
problems. But with spirit, characteristic feistiness and five days at
Hoag Hospital, the Amens are recovering from the novel disease.
When the couple both tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus at the
end of March, their daughter, Mary Amen, 61, immediately drove to their
Corona del Mar home and called the paramedics.
As she watched them being whisked away to the Hoag emergency room in Newport
Beach, she wondered if that would be the last time she’d see them
in person.
“I was terrified,” she said.
Hoag’s medical director of infection prevention,
Dr. Philip Robinson, shared Mary’s concerns.
“As soon as I heard that they were around 90 years old, I was pretty
worried about them,” he said.
Then he laughed.
“But when I went down to the emergency room and met them in person,”
Robinson said, “I realized that you could probably cut their age
in half, which was their true age.”
The hospital arranged for the couple — married 70 years on Feb. 18
— to room together. Dolores said she “wouldn’t have
had it any other way.”
“Oh, it was wonderful,” she said. “I got to watch him
24/7, see if he went to the bathroom or he was sleeping or he was sitting
up straight.”
Louis, founder of the eight-store grocery chain Super A Foods, usually
started his days at Hoag tapping out orders to his employees — four
of whom are their children. When he wasn’t keeping up his grocery
business — which got slammed during the pandemic — he slept.
“The next day, I go in and see them and he’s on his phone running
his grocery chain business and she’s sitting up bolt straight in
bed. … First thing she said: ‘You know, Dr. Robinson, you
told me that I’m not supposed to get pregnant but because I didn’t
get the drug last night — we tried, ’” said Dr. Philip
Robinson, Hoag's Medical Director of Infection Prevention.
Dolores, on the next bed over, got bored easily. In a recent interview,
she ticked off the names of different nurses she had befriended, as well
as their upcoming wedding and baby due dates.
“I just was watching what was going on and talking to all the nurses,”
she said. “Where are you from? Are you married?
“Do you need life insurance?” she said, adding that one of
her daughters sells life insurance.
Dolores and Louis kept each other company.
“One time, he looked over at me and he said, ‘I love you,’”
she remembered.
Dolores agreed to enroll in a clinical trial for remdesivir, an experimental
drug that may lower the risk of death or improve conditions for severely
ill COVID-positive patients.
One of the requirements for the study is not to get pregnant or get anyone
else pregnant for 28 days, Robinson said. He asked Dolores to agree to
the requirement by signing paperwork.
“She thought that was about the funniest thing she had ever heard,”
Robinson recalled. “The next day, I go in and see them and he’s
on his phone running his grocery chain business and she’s sitting
up bolt straight in bed. … First thing she said: ‘You know,
Dr. Robinson, you told me that I’m not supposed to get pregnant
but because I didn’t get the drug last night — we tried.'"
Meanwhile, Mary and her six siblings text messaged daily updates about
their parents, in addition to calling and FaceTiming. They sanitized their
parents’ home and arranged for Chris Van Tassel, Mary’s fiance,
to spend a few hours a week caregiving for the couple once they returned home.
As of last Wednesday, Hoag had diagnosed 99 COVID patients, 64 of which
had been admitted to the hospital. Since treating its first COVID patient
in January, Hoag has been working around the clock to prepare for the
uptick in coronavirus patients, Robinson said.
To view the original Daily Pilot article, please click
here.