A Hope couple stepped onto a cruise ship March 10 in Florida to begin a long-planned vacation to mark their 15th wedding anniversary.
For Diane and Craig Hawes, the timing was perfect to also celebrate two additional milestones — Craig’s 61st birthday and the 80th birthday of Nancy Ann Brown Poynter, Diane’s mom.
Or so the couple thought.
When Diane and Craig departed from Fort Lauderdale, their itinerary included stops in the Bahamas, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cozumel over an eight-day span. They were among about 750 passengers aboard a Holland America cruise ship.
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But on their second day at sea, the Haweses learned that the World Health Organization had declared the novel coronavirus outbreak, detected two months earlier in China, a pandemic.
“We had no idea of anything having been wrong,” Craig said. “We wouldn’t have gone had we known what was happening.”
During the trip, cleaning was being conducted constantly on the ship. Passengers were not allowed to help themselves at the bountiful buffet tables, instead having to wait to be served. And guests were prevented entirely from stepping foot onto the Cayman Islands.
The Hope couple’s world was rapidly changing — in ways neither of them imagined.
At the conclusion of the cruise, they headed to Naples for a family get-together. When meeting with her mom, the first female mayor of Columbus in the early 1980s, at a Perkins restaurant, there were no other guests besides their six-member party, said Diane, an administrative assistant at Turning Point Domestic Violence Services.
A sense of isolation was repeated the next day at a local seafood restaurant, which prompted them to cut their vacation three days short.
“We were in the last group of people who escaped from Florida,” Craig said.
Soon after returning home, Diane began feeling ill. She had developed a bad headache, congestion and a constant cough. She also felt exhausted and had a reduced appetite.
Diane called her doctor, who referred her to the Columbus Regional Hospital COVID-19 Resource Center. As a cancer survivor and an asthma patient, Diane learned that her compromised immune system made her a prime candidate to be tested for the coronavirus.
“I was thinking I had a sinus infection,” Diane said.
Greeted by a medical professional in what looked like full hazmat gear after arriving for her April 2 test in Columbus, the environment suggested otherwise.
Two days later, Diane was confirmed as one of the first 25 Bartholomew County residents to test positive for COVID-19, before any local deaths were reported.
Diane was not hospitalized. She wasn’t given new medications or therapies to try. No one tried to determine how or where she had become infected. Instead, she was sent home to isolate herself for 14 days.
Severe muscle pain also developed and she was experiencing bad night sweats, but her symptoms never included the fever or chills that many other COVID-19 patients experienced.
“My worst day, I cried all day,” Diane said, but after about three days she began to improve.
Having had chronic asthma her entire life, Diane was taking respiratory medications, which she believes helped her recovery from COVID-19. She also accepted a friend’s offer to use a spare oxygen tank for half-hour sessions.
Meanwhile, the hospital’s COVID-19 nurses called every other day during Diane’s two-week isolation period and a week beyond that to check on her. Afterward, she agreed to become a plasma antibody donor. It meant being tested again for COVID-19, and this time results were negative.
But the Hawes household was not over the hump as Craig — Diane’s caretaker during her illness — had come down with similar symptoms.
When Craig called the hotline, he was told he likely had also developed COVID-19.
“They wouldn’t waste a test on me,” said Craig, a retired major in the U.S. Army National Guard and military medical administrator who had run clinics all over the world. “I will never know whether I had it or not.”
That added frustration to the pandemic symptoms he was experiencing, which also eased up after about three difficult days.
They suspect they contracted the virus in the airport or on the plane ride home.
To keep others from becoming exposed, they holed up in their lakeside home for four weeks.
The day of their interview for this column, Craig had run a 5K and Diane — who has returned to work — proclaimed, “I feel really good.”
They continue to practice social distancing, however, and Diane has used social media to advocate wearing of masks, which she and Craig do when they are in public.
“When people give me reasons they can’t wear masks, I think it’s mostly an excuse. It’s a slap in the face to our medical people who wear them all day,” Diane said.
She fears that people are becoming too complacent.
Diane, a Democrat who lost a bid for the Bartholomew County Council four years ago, said Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb has gained her respect in directing Indiana’s coronavirus plan.
And at the national level, she lauds Vice President Mike Pence — a member of her Columbus North graduating class of 1977 — for the job he’s done heading the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
“Mike tells them the facts. He doesn’t try to showboat,” Diane said of the GOP national office-holder.
Her Republican husband, a 16-year Republican Columbus City Council member and a close friend of Pence’s since high school, agreed: “Mike’s doing a wonderful job.”
Turning away from politics, Diane has overcome serious medical issues before.
She was diagnosed in 2017 with renal cell carcinoma, a kidney cancer which required the removal of her left kidney, 10 percent of her liver and gall bladder. But on May 18, Diane and
Craig celebrated three years of her being cancer-free.
A year from now, they hope to have a chance to mark an anniversary of yet another medical recovery. Although it won’t likely be on a cruise, let’s hope that journey for Diane and Craig is smooth sailing.
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Age: 60
Residence: Schaefer Lake, Hope
Hometown: Columbus
Family: Husband of 15 years, Craig Hawes; two adult children.
Occupation: Administrative assistant, Turning Point Domestic Violence Services, Columbus Education: Pursuing Bachelor of Science degree in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville; Associate of Science degree in Organizational Leadership and Supervision, Purdue Polytechnic, 2103.
Leisure interests: Pontoon rides during warm-weather months; making wreaths for charity events during winter months.
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Retired editor Tom Jekel writes a weekly column that appears each Sunday on The Republic’s Opinion page. Contact him by email through editorial@therepublic.com
