Her 90-year-old mother survived COVID-19, but the experience was 'haunting'

As COVID-19 hit long-term care centres, Charna Bonan could only watch, and hope her mother survived

Media | Living Through COVID-19: Charna Bonan

Caption: Charna Bonan’s mother, 90, has dementia and contracted COVID-19 in the early days of the virus’s destructive path through long-term care centres in Montreal. But she survived.

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Charna Bonan was 500 kilometres away when her mother's long-term care home was hit with a COVID-19 outbreak last March.
"I panicked," she said. "To me, it was a death sentence."
Bonan lives in Toronto. Her mother, who is 90 and suffers from dementia, lives in Montreal — the epicentre of the virus's spread in Canada last spring.
"I'm haunted when I think how alone she was, how frightened she must have been," she said.
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This story is part of CBC Montreal's Living Through COVID-19 visual storytelling project. If you have recovered from COVID-19 and would like to share your experience, get in touch with us here.