‘Beyond kindness and caring’: 100-year-old who survived COVID-19 credits Sacred Heart staff

One morning a few weeks ago, 100-year-old Nita Jensen woke up and didn’t quite feel herself.

She decided to stay home and rest. The next day, she woke up feeling even worse. She tried to sit up, only to flop over like a stuffed animal.

“So, I knew I was in trouble,” Jensen said.

A positive home COVID test later, Jensen was loaded up into an ambulance and on her way to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center.

“I had the most unbelievable medical experience I have ever had,” Jensen said. “They were beyond kindness and love and caring. It was unbelievable.”

At 100, Jensen acts much like someone decades younger. She settled in Courtland Place retirement community after years of moving from one adventure to another.

“I’m like a tornado,” Jensen said with a laugh. “I’m all over the place.”

She sold cosmetics, was the head decorator at Sears, managed apartment buildings, worked as a dental assistant and was the ombudsman at a long-term care facility, only to name a few of Jensen’s careers. In her free time, she golfed, danced and volunteered.

She credits that drive to stay busy and learn new things for her long and eventful life.

“Have more interests than just one,” Jensen said. “Expand your activities, learn to do different things and challenges.”

Jensen has always been fairly healthy.

About three years ago, she had a pacemaker put in, but has been able to largely limit her daily medications to a baby aspirin and vitamins.

Still, she was careful when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world in March 2020. She stayed home, not even venturing out for meals in her retirement community.

Her son and daughter-in-law, Gary and Maris Intinarelli, had her groceries delivered. She got her first two vaccine doses as soon as possible.

The pandemic has been the most “baffling” thing Jensen has experienced in the last century.

Other crises have been more visual or hands-on, Jensen said.

“This is something you’re fighting that you don’t even know where it’s coming from,” Jensen said.

When Jensen came down with COVID, it was scary for her entire family, especially with hospitals in the area already overrun with patients.

During the omicron surge, many emergency rooms are overcrowded, with few beds available. Earlier this month, the National Guard was deployed to Sacred Heart, and all nonurgent procedures were paused statewide.

Jensen said she never would have known how busy the hospital was based on how she was treated.

“Instead of just leaving, they would say, ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ ” Jensen said of her nurses on the COVID floor. “I’m not the only one in the hospital. They had that whole hall to take care of, but when they were with you, they were with you.”

Jensen was given remdesivir, a drug initially used experimentally to treat Ebola. It was given to the first COVID patient in the United States, who showed improvement. Since then, it has been authorized for emergency use to treat patients with COVID-19.

The drug is typically given in an infusion over five days for people like Jensen who are hospitalized but don’t require a ventilator. While the drug doesn’t work for everyone, it worked for Jensen, who rapidly improved and was discharged after five days in the hospital, becoming one of the oldest COVID patients treated at Sacred Heart.

“Boy, it works,” Jensen said of the treatment.

While hospitalized, Jensen’s family was unable to visit but stayed in touch over the phone.

“Every doctor on every shift called my husband,” Maris Intinarelli said.

“It was almost like you were one of the most beloved relatives or friends,” Jensen said. “That’s the way you were treated in that hospital by that staff.”

Now home from the hospital, Jensen has continued improving. Thursday, she was back in her high heels. By Friday, she was laughing and chatting away, sharing her strong opinions about her hospital stay.

The biggest thing that Jensen took away from being hospitalized was the respect the hospital staff deserve.

“They have sacrificed their time,” Jensen said. “They’ve grabbed their mask in all kinds of weather and taken off and did another shift without a complaint.”

Jensen hopes that the community will support health care workers “by being human and by caring about something other than themselves.”