Local Coronavirus Victim’s Daughter: ‘I want my mom to be more than a virus’

[bc_video video_id="6142590276001″ account_id="5728959025001″ player_id="Hkbio1usDM" embed="in-page" padding_top="56%" autoplay="" min_width="0px" max_width="640px" width="100%" height="100%"] "It’ll never be the same. Her children and her grandchildren were her world and for her to leave this world with none of them there didn’t seem fair," says Lisa in tears. Lisa’s 73-year-old mother was one of the first to die of COVID 19 in Riverside County. She did not want to be identified because she says people are already harassing her and her family online. She says her mom was a home bound senior who should have never been infected with coronavirus, "I’m angry about that. My mother never bought a roll of toilet paper, my mom never hoarded a piece of food through this whole ordeal. My mom never went outside the country and traveled." Lisa says in early March her mom was moved to a senior care facility in Rancho Mirage after receiving treatment for leukemia. Days into her stay she began running a fever so they sent her to the hospital where she was treated for pneumonia tested for coronavirus. The first test was negative and it took days for her to receive a diagnosis. "Once it was confirmed it was coronavirus she was no longer breathing on her own," she says. She says doctors told her her mother was not responding to care, "And that she would never breathe on her own because the coronavirus sort of calcifies the lungs." They advised her to take her off of life support, Lisa who lives out of state rushed to be by her mother’s side. "One last request was that she be with her family when she left this world but they said they didn’t know that was possible because they had to have permission from the CDC," she says. So she and her sister stared at their dying mother from behind glass. "I turned to the nurse in the hall and said, ‘she doesn’t know we’re here this isn’t fair she has to leave thinking that her kids don’t love her,'" she says in tears. The nurse grabbed an iPad and put them on Facetime and even played her favorite song. "We can’t be there but we’re here as close as we can be and it’s okay to go… and she opened her eyes and looked at us … and as the last verse of Elvis singing ‘I did it my way’ my mom took one breath and left," she says adding no one should die like this, "I wanted my mom to be more than a virus." Even in death there is no peace. Gatherings of ten or more are not permitted in the county. "So what am I supposed to do I can’t have a funeral? I don’t know and as of yesterday when my mom passed no one knew how to even dispose of her body," she says. She’s sharing her story so that everyone will take the warnings seriously and protect ourselves and most vulnerable, "This is not the flu, it’s not a party, it’s not a vacation. This is real, this is real and anybody who thinks differently, tell my mom it’s not." She says her mom had a big heart and helped many people and did not deserve to die alone.