Linda J. White's Biography

Linda Joyce White was born in the Bronx, New York. She attended James Monroe High School and graduated from Bronx Community College with a degree in Business Administration.

She served the Van Nest community of Community Board 11 as a volunteer for most of her adult life. Not only was she an advocate for youth education but she served as Chairperson of the Youth Committee since the 1990s, first being appointed to the Board in 1992.

Linda was an active member of the Van Nest Community Association, patrolling the area and working hand in hand with the 49th NYPD Precinct. She was also an active participant in the NYPD’s Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association. In 2017, she was honored by the Van Nest Neighborhood Alliance, receiving numerous citations and recognition awards from both city and state elected officials.

Linda worked for North Central Bronx Hospital/Jacobi Medical Center as a Senior Hospital Care Investigator with the Patient Accounts Department for thirty-three years until her untimely death on June 15, 2021.

Anyone who got to know Linda received the best gifts in life: friendship, loyalty and generosity.  Linda gave her all to anyone she knew and loved. She made friends with strangers and was always willing to lend a helping hand or compassionate ear. Her empathy and care knew no bounds. She will be greatly missed by her extended family, friends, colleagues and, most of all, by the community she served.

The New Normal
by Linda J. White
December 2020

In April of this year, my world changed forever. Ever since the early 1990s when I contracted pneumonia, I had been susceptible to colds and bronchitis. So, when I first started feeling bad, I doubled up on vitamins and Tylenol. I already had my flu shot, but my job could not be more demanding. I continued working for weeks, but I found myself so tired that I could hardly get through the day.

When I began to cough and became short of breath, I read about the coronavirus and got tested. I was awaiting test results when I decided to see my doctor. She told me to take a few days off, but before the day was over, I received a phone call informing me that I had contracted the virus and that I needed to stay home for the next two weeks.

Two days later, my friends were calling an ambulance because I could not breathe. It seemed that I had called them hysterically because I was alone, coughing, burning up and nauseous. Never having been to a hospital as a patient, I was crying as the ambulance pulled away, watching my friends and home disappear behind.

I was given an oxygen mask in the ambulance, which transported me to a hospital in the Bronx I was not familiar with, Saint Barnabas. The nurses rushed me to the emergency room, saying that my temperature was 103. Once there, they hooked me up to machines and used medical terms I never heard of, which scared me. The doctors started pumping me with medicine and oxygen, taking blood and asking questions. I spent three days in the emergency room, during which time I was sure that I was going to die, fighting to breathe. My head felt like someone was playing the kettledrums. I could not keep anything in my stomach, and there were beds all around me filled with people of all ages and nationalities, stacked against the walls of one huge room with the doctor stations in the middle. The noises of people moaning, crying, machine alarms going on and off and doctors barking orders were a constant until all became quiet from drugs and fatigue.

When I kept trying to ask the nurse questions, she told me to conserve my energy. I do not remember when I passed out, but when I awakened, an entire day had gone by and my bedmates had all changed. At least 6 of them died. The nurse later informed me that I had suffered a stroke. She wanted to know if anyone in my family had heart trouble. I asked her to repeat what she said. She informed me that I had a severe case of COVID-19, and my lungs and heart were not functioning correctly, causing problems with the left side of my body. By next morning, I was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit and remained there for more than two weeks. During this time, I was given a bed by a window that overlooked the rooftops adjacent to the hospital, making me wonder what was happening below.

My doctors and nurses visited me round the clock but always in space suits. I was so sick and lonely that I cried constantly. They attempted to put me on a ventilator, which brought back horrible memories of a man next to me in the Emergency Room, who literally fought not to be placed on one. I hysterically declined. They explained that my lungs had shrunk and that they had given me several test medicines and were now going to try giving me plasma from a doctor who had survived the disease. If this did not work, I was going to have to use a ventilator. Attempts to transfer myself to another hospital were denied, and I gave up trying to control the situation.

Slowly, I began to improve enough for me to try bedside rehab, although it was difficult hooked up to oxygen attached to the wall, and because I had experienced a myocardial infarction, I had to relearn walking and other basic functions all over again. I was told that due to the pandemic we were not allowed any visitors. They had let me keep my cell phone, which allowed me to talk to friends. Without that, I may not have survived as my roommates changed several times and I was often alone. Without Community Board 11 and management from my job calling to check in on me, I may have languished at the hospital even longer.

Another week passed, and I was told that I would be going to a rehab facility for further medical treatment. I had been at Saint Barnabas for a month and was still on oxygen. But they told me I needed to go as I had gotten better and should not remain among the other COVID-19 patients.

Rehab began another three months of loneliness. I had a relapse of COVID that put me into isolation for three weeks. Rehab was difficult at first, as they tried to wean me off the oxygen concentrator and teach me how to get in and out of bed and care for myself. I was taught how to use a wheelchair and the call button. I needed to call someone to help me perform everyday things we take for granted. I felt more depressed and helpless. The aides who worked there became my friends, and many times they tried to bolster my spirits. I will never forget when they took me for my first shower. Because of COVID you were only allowed bed baths. My first shower made me feel like a new person, from head to toe.

Once out of isolation, I got to actually meet some of my doctors and nurses, who tried to ease me out of my depression and loneliness. They were able to move me to a window bed where I could sit and read or just watch the people out on the streets. I still had difficulty sleeping because I feared I would die in my sleep. My appetite was sporadic, and even though the food was not bad, I sometimes would not eat. During the last month of rehab, my friends passed by on the street to wave and bring me magazines. All the while, life had changed to what my doctor called the “new normal.” In other words, my case had been severe, and I needed to understand that life would be different, that I would have bouts of depression, fatigue, insomnia…and night sweats. Difficulty breathing would necessitate a bronchial pump, and in my case, there was the possibility that I would not completely recover from my deficits.

I was outfitted with a wheelchair, a walker and all that would be needed for rehab at home. I had contracted another problem with the muscles and bones in my hips and legs and, therefore, given a “lifter” to help me get in and out of the shower and bed.

The therapists and I laughed because due to COVID, no one was allowed in the gyms of the rehab facility. We were only allowed to do rehab in our rooms or the hallways of our wards. In talking with some of my fellow inmates, we felt cheated we were not able to use the exercise equipment in the gyms. There were other things I experienced, which made me realize whether it was at the hospital or at rehab, management and staff were what both caused and solved problems.

Rehab eventually came to me about my health insurance, which would soon run out, making me responsible for the bill. I had been without pay since the end of June, and I had not given the bills that had been accruing a thought. I had always wanted to go home, but I had gotten used to my new friends and no care mode of living. Finally free of COVID, I had people around me who cared and saw to my every need. I was scared to go home for many reasons. The fear of catching this dreaded disease again, for example, was still out there.

I had become more spiritual while at rehab, having prayers with some of the aides and nurses. One of them reminded me to ask the Lord what my next step was. The answer was to go home.

Four months after this horrible voyage started, the sun hit my face, and I was finally riding in a car on my way home. When we stopped in front of my house, my friends were waiting, and I first stared at them and my home for a long time. My friends helped me climb the stairs, and once inside memories that flooded my mind made me cry.

I came home three days before my birthday, and it is now five months since I have been home. In March I was taking two medicines. I now take fifteen. Two of them are for hip and leg pain, which can be excruciating. Two for the heart. Asthma medications. And a pump. I will not try to explain the others. I have had sporadic therapy aides due to insurance problems and, therefore, had to learn to get through most of this by myself. The doctor was right: the new normal is fatigue, pain, difficulty ambulating, shortness of breath…and a few other items, which are too personal to discuss.

I have not been out of my house since I came home. At least, if you do not count the therapist trying to get me to walk up and down my front steps. Virtual visits with doctors felt weird, not like a real visit. How do I explain what I am feeling, how I am breathing, the pain? My doctor seems sympathetic, like she understands. But does she? Does anyone? People ask me how I am doing, but do they really want to know? COVID is disease few seem to comprehend. Even the best doctors say each patient’s symptoms and travels are different. Some are cut and dry. Others are like a symphony of symptoms, which do not add up and should not exist in any one person, but they do. I have fallen once already. Being alone is not easy. My pain medicine puts me to sleep. My asthma pump is my third hand. Depression is always a problem, but too many people have brought me to this point to make me give in and not accept life, the new normal, as terrible as it is.