Seniors keep busy during pandemic

By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the most at risk demographic has been seniors, but with social isolation and self-distancing, what have they been doing for fun?

Of the 899 cases of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Durham Region, 93 have died, and 77 have been seniors living in long-term care homes (LTCH). In Oshawa, Hillsdale Terraces is a LTCH affected by the virus with 29 residents testing positive, 13 of which have died.

So, to get an understanding of what seniors have been doing to occupy themselves, The Oshawa Express reached out to seniors in Oshawa.

Ingrid Thompson lives with her husband Joseph, and she explains the virus has affected her by keeping her from going out.

“We are self-isolating, our son-in-law does our grocery shopping, our pharmacy delivers, and aside from going out in the morning to pick up my newspaper from the front porch, I sit out on the deck every so often,” she says. “But going out and about, we haven’t done that. So it’s been very isolating.”

She says other than that it hasn’t been too bad, noting she doesn’t know anyone who has, or has had the virus.

One thing she says is important is hand washing, saying she sings her ABCs whenever she washes her hands, and her husband counts to 20.

Thompson says once a week she will go out to make sure the car gets used, and when she does she wears vinyl gloves to protect herself while using the debit machine.

But in order to have fun, Thompson says they watch Netflix, and “unfortunately” they watch a lot of political programs.

“We’ve got a lot of stuff from PBS on the PVR, so we watch that,” she says. “I read, I’ve actually been doing laundry, the other thing is I’ve been doing my exercise programs with the [Oshawa Senior Community Centres]. That is so much fun.”

She explains she has bad knees, but she does a lot of chair exercises, and has adapted these exercises where she needs to stand so she can be sitting.

While she often makes sure she is keeping busy, she says it’s okay for people to sometimes not be busy and to not do anything.

Bill Hraynyk also spoke with The Express about how he’s been affected by COVID-19, noting he feels cooped up.

“Early on, with [experts] first talking about it, I think they were talking about self-isolation policy, stay in as much as possible, be careful when going out,” he says.
However, very early in March he and his wife were talking about it, and their doctor called.

“He had shut down his office in the Oshawa Clinic, so he had a talk with her and cancelled some appointments she had coming up, and made a strong point for her to stay in, and that I should be staying in and watching what I do carefully,” he says.

He adds his wife had breast cancer, and received chemotherapy, which diminishes the immune response, and from then on they made a point to stay in and have other people get things for them.

He then got in touch with the organization OSCC 55+, and, after speaking with a couple of people, they were eventually pegged as a test family for their grocery delivery program.

Hraynyk says he doesn’t know anyone affected by the virus himself, but he has had a loss in the family recently.

“My brother, he just lost his wife two or three weeks ago. She had been up at Hillsdale Estates,” he says.

He notes because of the widespread infection at Hillsdale Terraces, Hillsdale Estates shut their doors to visitors and family altogether.

“He was quite concerned about that, because for the last five years he spent virtually every day in there from about noon or shortly thereafter until she went to bed,” he explains, adding his brother made sure she got her meals and she was fed.

He was worried that, since he wasn’t there, the extra workload the LTCH had would keep them from fully occupying his wife.

“He got a phone call a few days after that policy was put in place, and was told she had taken a turn for the worse,” Hraynyk explains. “He moved in and they set up an extra bed in the room, and he was with her. But, about the second day after that he woke up in the morning and found her unresponsive, and she ended up passing away.”

He believes not everything was available to the residents there to help treat the virus more effectively.

“But there was no proof that it had anything to do directly with the virus,” he says.

However, despite a heavy loss in his family, Hraynyk and his wife have been managing to keep themselves occupied, and have even found ways to have fun at home.

“I’ve got a computer here, and my wife has got a tablet, and we go on different websites,” he says. “I’m on Facebook and Twitter, trying to keep in touch with some people that I’ve become friends with there.”

He says he received a message from a friend who lives in Australia, near an area which experienced heavy wildfires.

He’ll also go on different websites, or play different games. He notes his wife is heavily into adult colouring books.

He is a car enthusiast and has been reading articles or watching old races to keep himself occupied.

Another senior, Hazel Newell, says the virus has kept her in, and her two adult children bring her whatever she needs.

“Other than that, you have to accept what you can’t change. So there’s no point in being miserable about it because it’s going to take time,” she says.

Like the others, Newell says she doesn’t know anyone personally who has the virus, or had it, but she has heard about cases in Oshawa, Whitby, and elsewhere.
“But no friends or anything like that of mine,” she says.

Newell notes she had personal support workers coming to her house every day before the pandemic began, but she’s sent them home for the time being, and her children have been helping to take care of her.

“They bring my groceries and stuff, and make sure everything’s good for me,” she says.

During the pandemic, Newell says she has fun and occupies herself with trivia and colouring sent to her by OSCC 55+, and she’s also been watching TV while using her iPad, her computer and talking on the phone.

“I have a busy enough day that nothing gets boring for me. I’ll be glad when it’s over and I can get back to normal life, but I have nothing to complain about in the meantime,” she says.

Thompson emphasizes the need for communication, stressing how important it is for seniors, adding OSCC 55+ is making sure to do wellness checks at least once a week from different facilitators.

“We have excellent neighbours, so we keep in touch with our next-door neighbour by phone, and our neighbour across the street texts all the time to make sure that we’re okay,” says Thompson.

She notes the telephone, with the ability to text and FaceTime, are all very important in terms of keeping up with human contact.

“We’re in contact with other people at least once a day, and that’s really, really important,” she says.