How a Family Found the Will to Survive COVID-19 by Steven A
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JULY 30, 2020 – 9 AV 5780 JEWISHVOL 44, NO 27 JOURNALJEWISHJOURNAL.ORG How a family found the will to survive COVID-19 By Steven A. Rosenberg JOURNAL STAFF MARBLEHEAD – Friday, May 1 was supposed to be another workday for Phil Padulsky. While many residents across the state had been working from home since the Covid-19 pandemic began almost two months earli- er, Phil did not have that option and was considered an essen- tial worker. He had been in the food industry since he was a kid, helping his dad with the family business, and eventually serv- ing as food service director at school districts in Marblehead, Gloucester, and Stoneham. At 56, Phil was still a food ser- vice director in private indus- try. At the end of his shift on May 1, the weekend beckoned – but Phil noticed that he had a dry cough, and was feeling achy. When he arrived home in Marblehead, he decided to take a nap. Then he sat down to have dinner with his wife, Stacey. “I couldn’t taste anything when I had dinner,” said Phil, who suspected he might have contracted the coronavirus. By then, there had been 62,000 Covid-19 cases in the state, with 3,716 deaths. Nurses and doctors applaud as Phil Padulsky is transferred to the Spaulding Rehab in Boston after he spent a month battling the coronavirus. The following day he started At right, Padulsky, and his in-laws Bonny and Joe Glixman. to spike a fever and decided to get tested for the virus. By delirious, wanting to sleep, and called for another ambulance. some success in battling the “Sometimes my body just froze the end of the weekend, he at night I was sweating, cough- Soon, Bonny was at the same virus. Doctors agreed, and and I couldn’t hear what the learned he had tested posi- ing, and feeling miserable,” he hospital as her husband and Phil became the first Covid-19 doctor said; I got so scared. If it tive and decided to recuperate said. son-in-law, and also had tested patient at the hospital to receive was bad news, which it usually in his basement – afraid that By Sunday, May 10, Phil’s sta- positive for Covid-19. the dual treatment. was, I couldn’t talk for the day.” he might pass the virus on to tus was deteriorating quickly. “I was all alone, freaking out, Meanwhile, Stacey was pro- After a week, her mother got Stacey or his in-laws, Joe and His fevers had reached as high thinking each and every one hibited from visiting her hus- stronger and was released from Bonny Glixman, who live with as 105; his oxygen levels had was going to leave me,” said band and parents in the hospi- the hospital. And with the new the couple. dropped, and he couldn’t stop Stacey. To make matters worse, tal, so she stayed in her home. treatments, Phil’s vital signs For the next five days, Phil’s coughing. He was delirious and Phil’s kidneys failed, forcing him She reached out to Rabbi David began to improve. After 17 days, fevers got worse. On May 5, he couldn’t even remember what to be treated with dialysis. Meyer of Temple Emanu-El, who Phil came out of the coma, and spent the day alone in the base- he was saying. That’s when the Around that time, Lance’s kept the family in his prayers. was taken off of the ventilator. ment and missed his 30th anni- doctors decided to put him in fiancé, Mia – a pharmacist – She was filled with anxiety dur- Soon, Stacey was speaking to versary with Stacey. a medically induced coma and suggested that Phil receive con- ing the month of May. Phil on FaceTime. He tried to Meanwhile, during that week, place him on a ventilator. valescent plasma therapy, an “It was horrible. I had to rely speak but could just whisper. Stacey noticed that her father, “The doctors said my breath- experimental treatment that on the doctors and I would sit Finally a doctor gave him a pen Joe, who is 79 and a retired ing was getting a little shallow, some doctors use for people in the same spot on my couch and paper, and Phil wrote the jeweler from Point of Pines in and that they would have to with severe Covid-19. She also all day waiting for the time word “pup.” Revere, had developed a cough put me on a ventilator,” Phil suggested that he be given rem- when the doctor would call and “The doctor said he wants a and some weakness throughout recalled. “They said they had desivir, a drug that has shown give me an update,” she said. puppy. And everyone was clap- his body. Joe also took a Covid had no complications so far ping on the phone,” said Stacey, test and learned that it was pos- from ventilators. I told my wife who added that they will name itive. With her father and hus- I was scared, and she said ‘Stay the dog Will as a reminder of band ailing, Stacey picked up strong, you got this.’” Phil’s will to live. the phone on May 8 and called After Phil was put into a In early June, the hospital’s for two ambulances. Phil and coma and placed on a ventila- intensive care unit workers Joe were brought to North Shore tor, doctors performed the same applauded as Phil was wheeled Medical Center in Salem. procedures on his father-in-law, out of the unit and brought to a “I remember the ride over. It Joe. Stacey and their son Lance waiting ambulance. He was on was Friday and misty and the would FaceTime Phil while he his way to Spaulding rehab. He ambulance driver said, ‘You’ll was in the coma, and tell him spent 17 days learning how to be back home in a couple of they loved him and that he walk again, and after two nega- hours, you’ll be OK,’” said Phil. would eventually recover and tive Covid-19 tests, was released “But when I got to the emergen- return home. on June 18. As he was leaving, cy room, I was in the hallway “I could hear Stacey telling he passed his father-in-law, and burning up with a fever. me she loved me, and my son who had just been transferred They whisked me into a room saying when you come home to Spaulding. and put on ice blankets to cool we’ll go golfing. I didn’t realize “I said, ‘Hey Joe, you’ll be me off.” how bad it was because I was fine,’” said Phil, who was greet- Placed in a bed opposite his asleep,” said Phil. ed at home with a parade of 50 father-in-law, Phil knew some- As Phil and Joe battled to cars filled with friends and fam- thing was seriously wrong. “My stay alive, Stacey noticed that ily – including a Marblehead fire first thought was I wouldn’t wish her mother, Bonny, had come truck. this on my worst enemy. I had down with a cough and that her Since then, the Padulskys a high fever, confusion, a flu oxygen levels were low. Stacey, have tried to resume their lives, times 10. I was very lethargic, trained as a medical assistant, Joe Glixman after he was taken off the ventilator last month. continued on page 14 The Jewish Journal is a nonprofit newspaper supported by generous readers, committed advertisers and charitable organizations. Email [email protected]. 2 THE JEWISH JOURNAL – JEWISHJOURNAL.ORG – JULY 30, 2020 COMMUNITY NEWS A memorial that ensures no Jew lost to COVID-19 dies alone By Rich Tenorio Karen Landy, a chaplain with JOURNAL CORRESPONDENT Hebrew SeniorLife, shared what it was like to care for coronavi- WEST ROXBURY – Jamie rus patients in person, whom Cotel, the executive director of she referred to through pseud- the Jewish Cemetery Association onyms. Her first patient to of Massachusetts, placed a stone test positive, Ruth, had been a on a newly dedicated memorial Kindertransport refugee from at the Baker Street Memorial Europe in the months lead- Park in West Roxbury. Putting ing up to World War II. Her two a stone on a memorial is a Jewish daughters could not come to see mourning custom, and on July 9, her in the nursing home because the stone commemorated the of coronavirus restrictions. impact that Covid-19 has left on Another patient, Gigi, was a the Jewish community. Holocaust survivor from Poland On that day, Cotel helped who tested positive in May. Her dedicate a Covid-19 memorial in husband and their two sons a ceremony at the association’s had predeceased her, but she Baker Street Memorial Park. continued to present a hopeful Some, like her, were at the cere- Photo: Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts attitude, Landy said. Gigi could mony, while others participated The Covid-19 memorial at the Baker Street Memorial Park in West Roxbury. sing in four languages and sug- virtually, with all sharing heart- gested that Barbra Streisand felt words about a still-unfolding including Hebrew College, the idea was that [the 17th of rial is the stone commemorating could play her in a movie. crisis. Jewish Cemetery Association Tammuz] is a day of mourning, those who died during the coro- “Gigi died surrounded by The memorial reads, “In of Massachusetts, Combined we would come together, with navirus pandemic, inscribed the staff who had taken care of Memory of Those Lost During Jewish Philanthropies of Greater a new lens on our mourning with the Hebrew phrase zichro- her for eight years,” Landy said.