Pandemic steals precious time from residents in Sonoma County senior care facilities

When Anthony “Tony” DiGiovanni entered the Brookdale Windsor assisted living facility 14 months ago, the COVID-19 outbreak was still a foreign news story and two months from becoming a global pandemic.

The move to the Windsor senior care home was supposed to help the retired San Francisco fire battalion chief reclaim a bit of his gregariousness. The 84-year-old quickly became the “big man on campus,” talkative, vibrant, organizing last year’s Super Bowl party and other fun events at the facility.

Then came the shutdown, thrusting DiGiovanni and every other senior care home resident in Sonoma County into a world of isolation, fear, illness and, too often, death.

For DiGiovanni and many senior care home residents who have survived the pandemic, the virus stole more than a year of their lives, stripping away precious time and even hastening the effects of old age. Last summer, DiGiovanni contracted the virus and almost died. He’s thankful to be alive, though he doesn’t remember much about his illness and its effects have lingered on.

DiGiovanni was born in 1936 in Mather, Pennsylvania, a small community in the southwestern corner of the state. His father was a coal miner who died at 41 of black lung when DiGiovanni was only 5.

A few years after his father died, DiGiovanni’s family moved to San Francisco and started a new life. His mother remarried and the family rose out of poverty, climbing into the middle class, he said.

After graduating from high school, DiGiovanni joined the U.S. Coast Guard and served in its weather patrol program. DiGiovanni was aboard the USCG cutter Storis in 1957 when it and two other cutters went down in history as the first American vessels to slice their way through the icy Northwest Passage of the Arctic Ocean and circumnavigate the North American continent.

At the age of 29, he joined the San Francisco Fire Department in 1965 and remained with the agency until 1990, when he retired as a battalion chief. One of the more memorable experiences occurred the year before his retirement, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck on Oct. 17, 1989.

“I worked three days straight, 24-hour shifts,” he said. “We were out in the Marina. We couldn’t leave it because the big PG&E gas main was going. … We couldn’t put it out because the gas would build up and then we could have had another explosion. So we had to just surround it and make sure it didn’t burn anything more while the gas was still flowing.”

The following year brought a lot of change for DiGiovanni. He retired, divorced and moved to Sonoma County, where he owned several condominiums. His son, Dean DiGiovanni of San Rafael, said his father has always been a social person, involved in clubs like the Italian American social club in Santa Rosa and the local bocce league, where he continued to play through the end of 2019. He was even taking tango lessons up until the shutdown.

An opera lover, Tony DiGiovanni had season tickets to the San Francisco Opera and was making plans to see opera in Santa Rosa before the pandemic shuttered everything.

When the shutdown occurred last March, his family was relieved that DiGiovanni was safely in a facility that could care for their father, his son said.

“We sort of swallowed that pill of not being able to take him out and do things,” Dean DiGiovanni said. “He was very independent. When he went in there he was still able to drive. … Up until the stay-at-home order, he was able to come down here on the weekends and go out and do things outside the facility.”

In July, when the virus had begun making its way through local skilled nursing and residential care facilities, Tony DiGiovanni got infected and was hospitalized for three weeks. Even before the pandemic, DiGiovanni was nearing the end of his ability to drive. He’s not likely to get behind the wheel again, his son said. COVID-19 has “knocked down” his mobility, accentuated tremors, increased stiffness and his ability to walk and move about has been greatly impaired, he added.

DiGiovanni says he doesn’t remember much of his COVID-19 illness, of being treated in intensive care, being placed on a ventilator and receiving the experimental drug remdesivir. But to this day, he still feels its effects.

“I have trouble walking now,” he said. “It’s scary now thinking about it, how close to death I came.”

And to this day, the isolation continues. New guidelines issued by the state last week will soon allow wider opportunities for in-person visits to assisted living facilities. But for the past year, Brookdale Windsor residents could only receive visitors outside. Residents able to leave the facility were required to quarantine in their rooms for two weeks upon their return, he said.

“If I go out now, when I come back they isolate me or I have to stay in my room,” DiGiovanni said last week. “I can’t go out. (If I go out), I can’t mix with the other people like I can now.”

The new guidance released on Friday only requires those who have had a high-risk exposure to quarantine for two weeks.

DiGiovanni, who has been vaccinated, said he can’t wait for the pandemic to be over so he can finally get out and socialize again.

“We’re isolated here,” he said, longing for the day his son and others can visit with him person.

3 Questions with Tony DiGiovanni

Q: What was the moment when you realized the seriousness of the pandemic and that life would be very different moving forward?

A: “Well, I guess it was before I went into the hospital. One day I was here and I didn’t feel well and I fell out of bed. I couldn’t get up. That’s when I realized how bad my illness was. I was in kind of a daze (in the hospital) and I don’t remember much for about a month.”

Q: What’s your most vivid memory from last year? Is there a particular moment that stands out?

A: “When I came out of the hospital. I was still alive.“

Q: Has anything good come out of the pandemic, something that you will continue doing after the pandemic is over?

A: “I will appreciate life more, because I was close to death.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.