Human Interest

Woman Celebrates 100th Birthday After Beating Coronavirus: 'COVID-19 Can't Stop Me'

Leora Martin is also a cancer survivor and fought a serious battle with pneumonia last year

Published on June 30, 2020 01:34 PM

An Indiana woman beat coronavirus just one week before celebrating her 100th birthday.

Leora Martin — who lived through World War II, survived cancer and fought a serious battle with pneumonia last year — is now a coronavirus survivor as well, and celebrated her milestone birthday on Saturday, June 20, with her twin sister, Delora Bloomingdale, ABC affiliate WHAS reported.

Martin was one of 76 residents at her assisted living facility to be infected, and on June 13, one week before her birthday, found out that she tested negative for the virus after being first diagnosed in April.

“It was sort of a relief,” Martin told The Elkhart Truth. “You have to remember, I’ve been through cancer. I had to go to the hospital for five days with rods in my body — that was not comfortable, but I survived. They didn’t think I would survive pneumonia last year either, but I did.”

According to Greenleaf Health Campus, the senior living facility where Martin lives, she and her sister, who lives in California, celebrated together over Zoom.

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"They were able to sing each other Happy Birthday through zoom and she received a visit from her daughter!" the facility shared, including a series of photos from Martin's celebration.

In one of the photos, the birthday girl held up a sign that read, “COVID-19 can’t stop me from turning 100!”

Martin's daughter, Marilou Snell, told the Associated Press that her mother was mostly asymptomatic throughout her battle with COVID-19, but experienced appetite loss and exhaustion. However, the family was still concerned when they heard of her diagnosis.

“We were all pretty devastated when we found out she tested positive,” Snell said. “You read and hear all these terrible things and of course right away you fear the worst, so it was really hard.”

"It was a really tough time, but the staff at Greenleaf were wonderful,” she added. “They updated us with phone calls, text messages with what was going on. It was just very comforting to know that she had health care people around her 24/7. Also, just giving it over to God helped a lot too. He calmed us and said it was in his hands and he took care of it.”

According to the AP, the assisted living announced on June 19 that they were officially coronavirus free.

As of Tuesday, there are 46,370 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Indiana and at least 2,624 have died in the state. Nationwide, there are over 2.6 million cases and 126,161 deaths, per a New York Times database.

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