‘That doesn’t happen’: A 99-year-old Bluffton woman has recovered from COVID-19
A COVID-19 diagnosis was basically a death sentence for Olympia Bafundo.
She and her family like to be optimistic, but she was 98 years old.
People who are 98 years old don’t recover well from many diseases.
When she was diagnosed at her Bluffton assisted living facility in July, her family members had to face the near certainty that their mother would die all alone at the hands of the terrible virus.
They started to drag themselves through the end-of-life tasks: Writing an obituary, calling the funeral home, letting family members know they wouldn’t be able to gather for a funeral.
But Olympia lived.
And she didn’t just live.
She fully recovered from COVID-19.
Losing (and winning back) ‘a wonderful mom’
Bafundo lived in New Rochelle, N.Y., for most of her life where she and her husband raised three boys and she worked her way from a salesperson in the Lord & Taylor menswear section to a buyer for the company.
She retired to Philadelphia, but when she started to develop early signs of dementia her family decided it was best to relocate her to Hilton Head Island to be closer to her sons.
Even as she reached her mid-90s, Bafundo was still with it. While she had short-term memory issues, she recognized family and friends and made new ones at her assisted living facility, Canterfield of Bluffton.
“She’s outgoing and social,” her son, George Bafundo, said. “She can still develop friendships and she’s befriended a lot of medical technicians and social workers because she can converse a bit and respond.”
Even in her later years, George said Olympia is “a wonderful mom” who cares deeply about her family and brings them together.
When Canterfield locked down at the start of the pandemic, George saw his mother through her window once or twice per week. The family used a small whiteboard to communicate with their matriarch.
The family didn’t stay insulated for long, though.
In early July, Olympia Bafundo developed a nasty cough and was diagnosed with COVID-19 along with six other people at Canterfield.
“As soon as she was diagnosed, we figured that was it. That was curtains,” George said.
Immediately, she was transferred to Coastal Carolina Hospital, where doctors started a steroid treatment to prevent the virus from spreading further into her lungs.
After she stabilized, she moved back to an isolated wing of the assisted living facility.
Moving home didn’t immediately make things better or worse, but given her age and COVID-19’s complications, her family began to introduce hospice nurses.
She was tired all the time and had a hard time breathing. Constant supervision helped her get comfortable and manage her symptoms.
Meanwhile, her family was ready for the worst.
George said he read The New York Times each day and prepared to be the next heartbroken family that had to say goodbye to a loved one from a distance.
“That was perhaps the most disheartening fact of this whole episode is that we wouldn’t be able to see her in person before she passed,” he said. “That fact that she might die without anyone being with her? That was the stake in the heart. That hurt more than anything.”
But after three weeks of near-constant monitoring, something incredible started to happen.
Bafundo’s shortness of breath started to disappear.
Hospice nurses saw what they so rarely see: Improvement.
It became clear the early steroid treatments stopped the virus from spreading to her lungs.
On Aug. 21, just a few days before her 99th birthday, Bafundo’s doctor ordered a second COVID-19 test for her.
It came back negative.
The doctor called George Bafundo and said he’d never seen a 98-year-old person recover from COVID-19. The doctor told Olympia’s family to “thank their lucky stars.”
“We were absolutely elated,” George said. “We just couldn’t believe it. And then the thought that was overwhelming to all of us: Not only did she beat it, she beat it at 99 years old. That doesn’t happen.”
Now, Olympia is recovered and living happily.
Her family isn’t sure she grasped the full reality of the pandemic or the fact that she had COVID-19. She knew she was sick, and that she couldn’t spend any time with her friends — and that was enough.
To celebrate her recovery (and her birthday), the staff at Canterfield threw her an “I beat COVID at 99” birthday party.
Her family couldn’t attend, but nurses brought her to the courtyard to wave at her son and daughter in-law from a safe distance.
She wore the biggest grin, and her family, surrounded by insurmountable loss and desolation during a pandemic, learned something new from their mom.
Hope.
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 4:30 AM.
