nothin Covid Warrior, 92, Beats The Odds | New Haven Independent

Covid Warrior, 92, Beats The Odds

Ambulance crew delivers Frances Younger (above) to her waiting family (below.)

Paul Bass Photos

Four generations gathered on a Beaver Hills lawn Monday afternoon to witness a miracle: Frances Younger was coming home.

Frances Younger wasn’t supposed to come home.

She had been sick since April 15, in the hospital since April 28. She had Covid-19. She had pneumonia too —viral and bacterial. She had fluid around her heart. Her kidneys were failing.

She couldn’t eat. She could barely breathe; at one point she was on six liters of oxygen.

At 92 years old, Frances Younger was well past the age at which people are presumed to have a realistic chance of surviving this pandemic.

Those statistical projections don’t take into account individual human beings with names, like Frances Younger. Or the multitude of prayers that kept knocking on the doors of divine decision.

Frances moved to New Haven in the early 1960s from her native West Virginia with her late husband Melvin, a coal miner. She raised her kids here, ran a daycare, worked in a factory until the glue gave her asthma. Then she got to work raising her grandchildren.

Two and a half years ago, Frances suffered a fall. She needed to live somewhere with handicapped access. Her daughter, Cindy Williams, has a ramp outside her house on Ella Grasso Boulevard. So mom moved in.

Cindy’s brother Melvin was living there too. Cindy’s sister, Carol Fletcher, moved in recently after a fire at her home.

Frances was back with three of her children — who, every one of them, proceeded to come down with Covid-19.

We all lost our taste and smell. We all had these little slight coughs. I think I had it the worst of everybody,” Carol said. I had these really bad body aches and chills.”

Carol and Cindy (pictured), who have jobs at Yale (Carol as a senior administrator for a plastic surgeon, Cindy as an account assistant at the medical school), were already working from home since the Covid-19 shutdown. Now they were quarantined — and continually checking Frances for fear that the coronavirus would catch her, too.

Sure enough, by mid-April, Frances started exhibiting shortness of breath. Loose stools. She stopped eating and drinking.

Her condition worsened. She was admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital’s St. Raphael campus on April 28.

Doctors informed the family that Frances suffered from multiple dangerous conditions on top of Covid-19, including the heart problem and the two forms of pneumonia.

Her numbers don’t look good,” the doctors informed the family. Her numbers, her labs, do not line up.” Then the doctors went over resuscitation orders and plans for what appeared to be a likely end to a long life well lived.

The children called out their warriors.”

Start praying,” Cindy instructed friends in New Haven, Frances’ friends from St. Matthew’s UFWB Church on Dixwell Avenue, her beloved Pastor Kevin Hardy, another friend in North Carolina. Cindy was specific in her instructions, laying out Frances’ conditions that required healing.

They Zoomed every morning with Frances. They prayed with her. Old friends Wade and Lillian Townsend sang Blessed Assurance” and Amazing Grace.”

Frances sang with them. She didn’t want to die.

She was praying too: I was praying to get out of there!”

Sure enough, her oxygen levels improved. Death wasn’t quite ready for Frances after all.

Her children got the word Frances was coming home. And they got ready.

By 3 p.m. Monday, Cindy and Carol and Melvin waited by the front door for an ambulance crew to return their mom. Frances’ grandson Dion showed up. Then great-granddaughter Latea, along with great-great grandson Terrence.

The sky darkened every few minutes. Then it brightened. Then it darkened again. Frances was coming; so was a thunderstorm.

A crack sounded above.

Hold it back, Lord!” Cindy called out.

The phone rang: The ambulance crew was leaving the hospital.

It arrived along with the first raindrops.

The thunder and heavy rain held back as Frances’s family pulled out cellphones. Oh my god! Mama’s coming home!”

As the crew wheeled toward and up the ramp to the back door, Frances said she hadn’t expected to be coming home.

I feel good,” she said.

The family settled her inside. Asked what she would like next, she said she hopes to see more of her eight grands, great-grands, and great-great-grands. She said she wants to see Pastor Hardy.

Cindy promised to make it happen.

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

Avatar for Rachel in Ward 25

Avatar for Heather C.