A Coast nurse was admitted to COVID-19 unit where she treated patients. She’s gone now.
Elaine McRae’s children thought she would be the last person to contract COVID-19, even though she worked as a registered nurse.
She was so careful. And they had never seen the 63-year-old sick, not even with a fever.
When the coronavirus pandemic crept into the United States, McRae, a cardiac observation nurse at Gulfport Memorial Hospital, volunteered to work on the COVID-19 unit.
She was a helper. She thought that was what she needed do.
When she came down with COVID-19, her four grown children fully expected her to recover. She was the family’s anchor.
She had a strong immune system and no underlying conditions except high blood pressure controlled with medication.
She was a country girl from George County, filled with grit, determination and a fierce love for her family
“We thought she was going to make it,” said her daughter Monica Erwin, who considered her mom a superhero and her best friend. “And then she didn’t.”
McRae’s family planned to bury her Friday, less than two weeks shy of her 64th birthday. They are still in shock.
Her oldest daughter, Allyson Nulta, sees the COVID-19 numbers the Mississippi State Health Department releases each day. Her mom, she thought, meant more than a statistic: one among 3,500 statewide deaths. She wanted people to know just how special Elaine McRae was.
Nurse loved living near MS Gulf Coast beach
McRae was a divorced mother of two when she managed to buy a house two blocks off the beach in Pascagoula on the small salary she earned working in a doctor’s office.
The children never really realized how hard she had it. After two more children and a second divorce, she returned to school to become a registered nurse. She somehow juggled studies, two teenagers and two toddlers.
Monica remembers trips with their mom pulling her and younger brother Zachary Erwin in a red wagon at the country club golf course, where they hunted for balls. They went for swims in the river and played on the beach, occasionally dining at restaurants where kids eat free.
One Easter, the kids dyed boiled eggs and ate them for dinner. Only later did McRae confess to Monica that they were out of food and money and her mom went without any dinner at all.
“She made our lives seem so much better than it was,” Monica said. “In my mind, it was a golden childhood, but we were going through hard times.”
McRae always encouraged her children to enroll in extracurricular activities and stick with them. Somehow, she managed to make every tournament, dance recital and soccer game.
She had two favorite sayings that her children heard many times: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
She was fiercely protective.
If one of her children got picked on at school, McRae went straight to the principal, the school counselor, the offender and the offender’s parents. One time, the rowdy husband of a niece was trying to take their child from the house. McRae picked up a cast iron skillet and went after him.
“He gave the baby back,” Allyson said. “He knew my mom would hit him.”
Nurse, patient on COVID floor
Caring for COVID-19 patients was tough but something McRae felt compelled to do. She told her children about all the death, the families who couldn’t visit their loved ones as their lives slipped away.
She was in tears when she talked to son Brandon Mizell about it, he said. But McRae was strong. And she was careful at work and when out in public. She preached mask-wearing and never left the house without a surgical mask.
She had always guarded herself and her family against infection. She had been wearing surgical gloves to pump gas for at least 10 years, wouldn’t let her children drink after each other, and kept hand sanitizer all over the house.
The weekend before she got sick, McRae went to Presley’s Outing in Moss Point. Photos show her beaming on a float in Goodes Mill Lake with her daughters and granddaughter, Sara Mizell.
McRae came home feeling sick one day in August. The next day, she had a fever. Her appetite flagged. Her first COVID-19 test was inconclusive. McRae, who realized she had COVID-19, warned Monica to stay out of her mom’s room.
A week after she first got sick, McRae was having trouble breathing. A monitor showed her oxygen saturation at only 63%.
Although they were in Pascagoula, McRae insisted she be taken to the Memorial Hospital emergency room in Gulfport.
Monica, who was living at home, was not allowed to go into the hospital with her mother. But McRae was in good hands. Her co-workers on the COVID-19 unit were taking care of her.
Days later, McRae was moved from there to the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit, where she soon had to be put on a ventilator.
Her children communicated with her by telephone before she went on the ventilator and then afterward, when McRae could no longer speak, hospital personnel held up an iPad so they could talk to her over FaceTime.
The hospital staff did all they could to help McRae, even holding prayer vigils and a bake sale to raise money for her care.
McRae eventually tested negative for COVID-19 and was moved to the regular ICU unit. The coronavirus had destroyed her lungs. They were like paper. Doctors held out hope for a lung transplant, but McRae’s condition did not improve.
Because she no longer tested positive for the coronavirus, her children were able to visit, including youngest son Zachary Erwin, who lives in Virginia.
COVID-19 is not ‘a hoax’
Fittingly, one of McRae’s last coherent moments was hearing about an accomplishment that meant a great deal to her.
Monica idolized her mother. They went everywhere together. Her mother’s years as a nurse inspired Monica to become one and her desire to make her mother proud kept her focused on her studies while her mother was sick.
She studied because she knew that is what her mother wanted her to do.
Monica was notified before her mother died that she had passed her board exam to become a registered nurse. One of her mother’s last conscious moments was seeing her daughter’s nursing license.
Even though she was on a ventilator and unable to speak, Brandon Mizell said, McRae was so excited, she looked like she was ready to climb out of the bed.
But it was not to be. Doctors told the children they should sign a Do Not Resuscitate order. Her children told their mom it was OK to go. Seventy-two days after being admitted to the hospital, on Nov. 5, Elaine McRae died.
McRae’s children said they are not sure people have a healthy enough respect for COVID-19.
“It’s not a hoax,” Brandon said. “It’s very real.”
McRae was one of seven children. Her father is deceased, but her mother, Alice McRae, still lives in Lucedale and has buried two other children in recent years.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Allyson said. “It just doesn’t.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 5:50 AM.
