For a great-grandmother aged just under a century, it is the time to celebrate a lot of things as she has made it out of the deadly coronavirus alive.
Anne Giardino, 99, was diagnosed with coronavirus earlier in April after she was admitted to Stony Brook Hospital in New York, her daughter Camille Stordeur told PEOPLE.
However, in a miraculous change of events in less than a month, Anne’s family and the staff of the hospital watched with tears of joy as the century-old lady walked out of the healthcare facility, fully recovered.
She held a rainbow sign as she moved out of the hospital, reading: “I’m 99 and I crushed COVID-19!”
Anne’s 71-year-old daughter Camille said about her parade out of the hospital: “She’s a queen, she’s Wonder Woman.”
According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, people who are aged above 65 and those who have underlying health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and liver issues are at a higher risk of getting severe or even deadly symptoms of coronavirus.
Camille said that despite her age, Anne had no underlying health issues and was an active member of her community. She said that her mother acted as a lector in her assisted living facility.
Anne started having the symptoms of corona on April 3.
“She spoke in front of a crowd on Wednesday [ahead of] Palm Sunday services,” Camille explained.
“She was fine and then this beast just came in and attacked her breathing… When she got to the hospital on Monday, they immediately gave her oxygen.”
Even after Anne was admitted to the hospital, Camille was confident that her mother who had raised 4 children, 10 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren will make it out of there alive.
“I wasn’t going to lose my mother to COVID-19. There was no way, she was healthy,” Camille said. “She’s too strong of a woman.”
Camille was right about it. After just a week of staying at the hospital, Anne was relocated to the rehab center where she had spent some time earlier when she fell down and broke her pelvis bone.
Ashley Romano, the president of CareRite centers, said that Anne arrived there in a stretcher and in just 10 days she was discharged from the facility, with the staff cheering her up with balloons and encouraging signs.
“My eyes filled up,” Camille remembered the discharge of her mother from the facility. “It was a parade of life walking out… and it was overwhelming to see how she’s so loved.”
“When people come in on a stretcher and they leave walking, as clinicians that’s all the team can hope for,” Romano told PEOPLE.
“I think it gives the everyday person the opportunity for hope and inspiration. If Anne can do it, we can all do it.”
“She came in and needed support and assistance eating and walking. But then for her to be the spitfire she is and walk out with her tie-dye sign, that’s what it’s all about,” Romano added.
“She’s someone who is an inspiration — not only to her family but to the Hamlet family, as well.”
Camille added: “She doesn’t take any pills [other than] a sleeping pill — who has to take a sleeping pill at that age?”
“I’ll never forget, she said, ‘Why didn’t I die?’ That was a little heavy to hear, but my mother is feisty and that’s why she’s still around. She would never rock in a rocking chair — that doesn’t rock with my mother.”
“She’s full of life,” Camille continued.
“She’s gonna be 100 in September and she helps the people [at the assisted living home] where she lives — she opens the door for them, helps them get around.
“Her motto is, ‘You can’t stop, you gotta keep going’ … and that’s what she does. We wouldn’t let her go, it wasn’t her time. She’s got too much life in her.”
As of now, 1.21 million confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported in the US and 69,680 people have died from the disease. The state of New York has 319,000 confirmed cases and 19,415 deaths so far.
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