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Show HOME NURSING FOR THE HOMEBOUND to be told they're not useful anymore. It's not that they're not useful. It's just that they have to readjust re-adjust their life a little,' Healy explained. ex-plained. While death may be one of the greatest difficulties faced by home health care workers, seeing active individuals lose their ability to take part in projects is probably just as difficult. 4,I think the hardest thing on every family like this one is that it's hard to get out. Most of the people we deal with were so active and then they wind up at home and no longer able to go out and do things and be as active as they used to be," Healy explained. Mr. Wright is still able to get out and do a little walking around the yard and spends as much time as he can in the garage downstairs building clocks of cross-sections of wood. But Mrs. Wright's arthritis keeps her from going out much or doing the gardening she loves a tremendous change from life in earlier years. "She had too much to do at home to go out and get a job," Mr. Wright explained. While Mr. Wright served as Hennifer's mayor and president of the school board, Mrs. Wright acted as his "right hand man," Healy said, doing his typing and keeping records as well as taking care of the farm, the garden of raspberries, strawberries and squash. She was also responsible for getting the cows milked and daily candling the eggs the 200 to 300 chickens would lay. In her spare time Mrs. Wright wrote several books including "Hennifer, Our Valley Home," "Setting Once Along the Rails," "Remember Devil's Slide""' and "Dance Hall." Mrs. Wright was active in her church as well as counselor to the president of relief society. Her father was a bishop and her grandfather grand-father was a bishop as was Mr. Wright's grandfather. Besides his work in public service ser-vice and on the farm, Mr. Wright worked full-time for the Devil's Slide Cement Plant in Hennifer for 48 years driving teams of mules and other jobs. But their age and slowing reaction reac-tion time has made their lives much less active. Today if Mrs. Wright wants to work in the kitchen, Healy explained, ex-plained, Mr. Wright is reluctant to let her. "With his hip he just can't move fast enough to help her if anything goes wrong and he's not really able to help her up if she falls anyway," Healy explained. This dependence becomes one of the difficult aspects of home health care employees. "It's hard to see because you just want to say 'OK, you want to do something? Go ahead and do it, " Healy said. While Mrs. Wright has not been able to move around as much in the kitchen, a senior companion gives assistance in the kitchen a few days each week. "A lot of people don't understand that they don't have to be acutely ill. They just have to be where they are homebound," Healy explained. "There are people out there really struggling who don't know this service is available, so they end up in a nursing home where they don't necessarily need to be." "In the hospital, you see (the patients) when they are really sick and the family is hovering over them, doting over them and you think it's such a loving family. But when they get out, the family is not there a lot of the time." -C. Healy Home Health Care Registered Nurse i Author! note: The following article is the second in a series discussing services available through home health care. Services Ser-vices include registered nurses, physical dapista, nurses' aides, speech ipists, occupational therapists and cal social workers. By JENNIFER PETERSON Staff Writer Maxinc and Joseph Wright spent most of their lives in Hennifer, Summit County, busy with church, social and civic activities while raising rais-ing three sons on the family farm. Today the Wrights lives have changed drastically as poor circulation circula-tion and severe arthritis keep them indoors most of the time. "When we still lived in Hennifer e used to get out and do all we Qiuld " Mr. Wright said. "We used 10 travel around and visit our friends and go to the senior citizens' center. In 1988, after a hip replacement and other medical problems began to take their toll, the Wrights were moved to Bountiful by one of their sons. "I couldn't get around as well, I couldn't drive as well and they decided we couldn't stay alone up there so they built this on their home and this is where we've been ever since. But it isn't Hennifer, Mr. Wright explained. Their three-year-old Bountiful home may not be the farm on which they spent their lives raising grain, hay, 300 chickens, 16 milk cows and several sheep. But it is in this new location the Wrights are able to receive not only the love and care of their family, but also the assistance home health care has to offer. Even though the Wrights children love them and do all they can for them, they also have to work and keep up their busy schedules. As a result, the services home health care has to offer are priceless. "I don't know what we'd do without them. We'd be in a real fix," Mr. Wright said. Cheryl Healy is a registered nurse for Creekside Home Health who has been tending to some of the Wrights' needs for the past two years. Home health care nurses are responsible for a variety of tasks ranging from dressing changes and ostomy care to educating patients about their medications and nutrition. nutri-tion. ' 'In the hospital you don't see all this. You just think they're being stubborn." -C. Healy Home Health Care Registered Nurse Healy worked as a hospital nurse for 10 years prior to her home health care experience and says the difference between hospital, nurs- ing home and home health care is tremendous. In hospital nursing, Healy said, professionals see the patients in a critical state and never really get to X x I ! ' - ! f I ' - ' 1 i' r " J ' " ' 1 t 1 I s , v - 1 J - : j 4 .Jr& --'fa- " 4&.4b. 'j '-- -'. -Cf - - f&&'sJ&&&'rX0H tellSSS1liBtffli know them. The main goal in the hospital is to get the individuals out of acute states of illness or injury. Nursing home professionals are also denied the personalized effect home health has to offer. While nursing home patients are not quite so acute, Healy said they still need constant care. Home nursing is the follow-up meant to keep individuals from falling fall-ing back into that acute state. It offers professionals an opportunity to see patients in their home environment envir-onment rather than "just in four walls," Healy explained. "You really get to know them what their lifestyle is or why they don't want to take certain medications. medica-tions. In the hospital you don't see all this. You just think they're being stubborn," Healy said. Healy also explained that families' attitudes and helpfulness in the hospital is often deceptive. Some families in her home health care experience, Healy said, have really opened her eyes. "In the hospital, you see (the patients) when they are really sick and the family is hovering over them, doting over them and you think its such a loving family. But when they get out, the family is not there a lot of time," Healy explained. ex-plained. The Wrights, however, are lucky not to be in this position, Healy said. In 1988, when the Wrights were having a difficult time being on their own in Hennifer, their son built them a townhouse-like apartment apart-ment above the garage adjoining the house. With the help of the family doctor, doc-tor, Healy, as well as physical therapists, aides and a senior companion, com-panion, were brought in to assist the Wrights. Healy and her charges seem to get along very welL But, she said, sometimes a good relationship can make her job difficult. "Sometimes it's really hard--you become close to them. They get to know your little quirks and you get to know theirs," Healy said. At some point this closeness would become nearly tragic for "A lot of older people don't want to be tola they're not useful anymore. It's not that they're not useful. It's just that they have to readjust their life a little" -C Healy Home Health Care Registered Nuise many people. But for Healy, the inevitability in-evitability of the loss of a patient is something with which she and others in her field must be able to cope. "Last year I lost twelve patients and each time I felt like it took a piece of my heart. When you go past the house, you feel really sad because you know you won't see them again and I think that makes it difficult," Healy explained. While the loss of a patient is never a glad occassion, Healy said sometimes it is a relief to see someone some-one finally at rest after months or even years of pain and suffering. "There are some times you're glad and other times I'm like, 'Well, she could have lasted another week or another two months. You don't blame it on yourself but you do kind of say 'well, what could I have done differently. I think everybody does that," Healy said. Sometimes, however, it is difficult even for Healy and others in her position to let go. "I don't know if it's because of the closeness, but sometimes you wonder why you do some things. Once I had a patient that she was told was getting weak but when I'd come in she'd perk up. The aide would say she wouldn't get up on her own and she wasn't walking. Then when I would get there she would do it. I'd just say 'now, I know you can do it' and she would get up and go at it. "And then she developed this lump in her intestine and we took her to the doctor. They said they'd have to operate and found it was cancer. "Then I felt guilty because I had been forcing this lady to get moving when she was sick- But when I went there she didn't act sick. Then I thought maybe I wasn't catching all the clues," Healy said. But she said it's difficult to decide whether an individual is being be-ing stubborn or is really feeling ill. Sometimes even if they appear ill, they won't admit they feel that way. "A lot of older people don't want Joseph and Maxine Wright say they do not know what they would do without their home visiting nurse, Cheryl Healy. Healy has been working in the home health care field for more than two years. |
