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Dedicated nursing home worker dies of COVID-19 after refusing to abandon patients

Canton Repository - 7/6/2020

NAVARRE Maybe someday, after COVID-19 is defeated or at least put in its place, Claudia Boughman and others like her will be honored.

She's not a war hero.

She didn't race into a burning building.

Claudia Boughman worked at New Dawn Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, a nursing home in Dover. She couldn't bear the thought of residents being alone. Not in their twilight years. And certainly not when a virus was plucking away the weakest, sickest and oldest among us.

Likely because of that, she's dead.

Gone last month at age 62. The virus that killed her came swiftly. Before she could enjoy her own golden years. Three years before a planned retirement trip to Alaska with her sister, Lorrie Grey.

"I wanted her to stop working," said Grey, who lives in New York. "We talked on the phone every day; I told her 'You're 62 years old ... stay home.'"

No way, Boughman told her.

***

It was no surprise. Working with seniors was Boughman's calling and persona. She had a knack for making residents smile and laugh, sometimes enabling them to forget a pain or worry, if only for a moment.

"She was so kooky, wild, crazy," said Jessica Celesnik, one of Boughman's two daughters. "Just the way she'd walk through the hallways."

Boughman's career began as a cosmetologist. Her first nursing home job was cutting hair at Country Lawn, near Navarre in the early 1990s. She liked it there so much, she became a nurse's aide, then went on to get college degrees to become a social worker.

After long stays working at Country Lawn, then Meadow Wind nursing home in Massillon, Boughman had recently moved on to New Dawn.

"I would go in with her when I was a kid," Celesnik recalled. "I'd read cards to (residents). ... I started working there myself when I was 17 years old."

Like mother, like daughter.

The 39-year-old Celesnik became a nurse, specializing in nursing home work, too. Today, Celesnik is admissions coordinator at Altercare Nobles Pond nursing home in Jackson Township -- though she said she's spent time as a floor nurse during the COVID-19 crisis.

"We both knew, with our jobs, that we were at risk," Celesnik said.

***

An administrator at New Dawn did not return phone calls for comment for this story.

The nursing home, which has 98 certified beds, is highly rated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services standards. It's a 4-star (of a possible 5) facility. It's rated five stars on quality of care.

Like many nursing homes, though, it's been struck by COVID-19. According to Ohio Department of Health statistics through July 1, New Dawn had logged 36 resident cases and 15 staff cases of the virus.

Celesnik said she's not sure exactly how her mom got the virus -- and added it doesn't matter.

***

In Mid-March, she and her mom had agreed to stay away from each other, to reduce risk for them and residents at the nursing homes where they worked.

"I only saw my mom four times since," Celesnik said.

On April 6, they exchanged birthday gifts and talked outside. On Mother's Day, Celesnik was working a 12-hour shift at Altercare, so her mom brought her Dunkin' Munchkins and an iced caramel macchiato -- their normal snack routine when they went shopping.

The third time was on Memorial Day. Boughman came to her daughter's Canton home for a social distance cookout. They'd been starting new family traditions, following the death three years ago of Boughman's husband, Charles -- Celesnik and her sister's stepdad.

"Two days later, she told me she had symptoms," Celesnik recalled.

***

Boughman got tested for COVID-19. She had it. Then, her health got worse. By the end of the holiday week, she was so wiped out that she could barely move. On Sunday, May 31, an ambulance took her to Aultman Hospital, where it was straight to intensive care.

Celesnik said her mom was given plasma with COVID-19 antibodies at Aultman -- part of a clinical trial being conducted through the Cleveland Clinic.

"She started getting better," Celesnik said.

Boughman sent photos of a hospital monitor that showed her oxygen level had improved. Soon, it seemed, she'd recover. She'd be her old self again, collecting heart-shaped rocks and oodles of flamingo figurines.

***

The next two weeks, though, became a frustrating push and pull of hope and despair. Based on Celesnik's Facebook posts and her memory of events, along with memories of her mom's sister, it went like this:

On June 3, Boughman's condition began to slide. She was placed on a BiPap, an external ventilator to force her lungs open to breathe.

"They couldn't say what was going to happen; they just didn't know," Celesnik recalled of her many conversations with medical staff.

A week later, it was dire.

"She just kept deteriorating," Celesnik said.

A tube was inserted down Boughman's throat into her lungs and she was put on a new ventilator. On June 9, she went on an ECMO machine, which sent her blood to an artificial lung to be oxygenated, before it was pumped back into her body. She was flown to Cleveland Clinic.

Twice a day, Celesnik called for updates.

"She's stable."

"She's stable."

Celesnik heard that over and over.

A tracheotomy was recommended and performed. It would provide more comfort for Boughman, while still forcing air into her lungs.

"We'd had discussions (before) about end of life," Celesnik said.

***

Celesnik said doctors began to use the uncommitted phrase "cautiously optimistic" in describing her mom's potential for recovery.

"That phrase will stick with me the rest of my life," she said. "She's on a machine that's running her heart and lungs. I'm not sure how much worse it could get."

Before they had a chance to discuss her mom's care plan going forward, Celesnik said she received a call from a neurologist on June 18.

Boughman's pupils were fixed and dilated. A scan revealed she had suffered a brain hemorrhage. Brain surgery was an option; the odds were long.

"We decided against it," Celesnik said.

Celesnik and her boyfriend drove to Cleveland, to be with her mom. Celesnik remembers putting on gowns and masks. She pulled a chair beside the bed where her always boisterous mom lie unconscious.

At least, Boughman wasn't alone.

Celesnik held her mom's hand for three, maybe four hours, until her heart stopped.

Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or

tim.botos@cantonrep.com.

On Twitter: @tbotosREP

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