Wheelchair Doesn't Slow Down Popular Home Care Nurse

Max · 12-31-2002, 04:55 PM

Wheelchair Doesn't Slow Down Popular Home Care Nurse

Mary Kroeger, right, visits with Goldie Gerhardt in Gerhardt's apartment in an assisted living center in Clearfield. Kroeger, who was injured in a sledding accident and now uses a wheelchair, is running her home nursing care business from her Layton home, and still makes lots of personal home visits. (Steve Griffin/The Salt Lake Tribune)
BY LORI BUTTARS
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

LAYTON -- Mary Kroeger knows more about home health care now than she did when she was the one making house calls, giving sponge baths, taking blood pressures and doling out medications.
"I know how scary it is to try something for the first time," says the Layton home health care nurse who was paralyzed from the chest down in a sledding accident 10 years ago. "Even just being alone in your own home for the first time can be scary. I know how that feels."
The accident may have changed her life, but it has not kept her from her work. Kroeger's home is the command center for Health Watch-Caring Hands Hospice, where she oversees 15 workers who visit the sick and the elderly each day.
It might be the mental image of Kroeger running her own business out of a wheelchair or the notion that she is only a phone call away, but many of Kroeger's patients see her as an inspiration.
"I was surprised" to see her in a wheelchair, says Goldie Gerhardt, a diabetic whose disposition brightens whenever Kroeger visits.
While Kroeger's employees prick Gerhardt's finger for blood tests and administer her insulin shots, Kroeger jokes that she mainly stops by to "give her a hard time."
"Probably the thing I miss most about being a nurse is the personal contact with people and helping them," she says. "So, if I have a new patient that is coming home from the hospital or one that's just going into the nursing home, I try to meet them [at the hospital or nursing home] because those facilities tend to be handicapped accessible, where many of their homes might not be."
And if she cannot visit them in person, Kroeger starts the new friendships over the phone.
"It helps the patients to know that they can call and get Mary 24 hours a day," says home health aide Shay Buck, who works for Kroeger. "It's not like a paging service; they can call and get her on the phone. She has a real way with people."
Kroeger, a 44-year-old single mother with two children, tries not to dwell on the accident that left her a quadriplegic. It happened on a hill just down the street from where she lives. After watching her kids play in the snow one afternoon, she took one run down the slope herself and ran into trouble.
"I got going fast and backward and I went off the lip of a little ditch," she recalls. "I felt a ping in my neck just as I landed and I knew right then that I was going to be paralyzed."
She notes that the accident came at an "interesting" time in her life -- just as she was finishing her master's degree in nursing business.
Kroeger's classmates in the master's program through the University of Phoenix arranged to have their classes at the hospital, while she spent five months rehabilitating. The home health care company, where she was working as an area administrator, encouraged her to come back to work as well.
"They figured out what I was going to do for a paycheck before I could," she says. "They said, 'We want your brain, not your body.' It blew me a way."
That kind of support has helped her weather changes in her personal and professional life. When Medicare changed its policy on home services, the company she worked for decided to concentrate on its nursing-home business and sold off its home health care services to another company that didn't have a position for Kroeger. So she struck out on her own.
She still struggles with "ornery insurance companies" and says marketing her own business is not something that comes naturally to her.
"If the accident hadn't happened to me while I was getting my master's, I probably wouldn't be here today," she says. "I kind of had gotten to the point where I thought all the kind and caring people had gone away from nursing and people were just doing it for the cash. I know now that isn't always the case."
lorib@sltrib.com

http://www.sltrib.com/2002/Dec/12312002/utah/utah.asp

jmcquad · 01-31-2003, 11:59 AM

It is so nice to see that someone somewhere cares, it has become so expensive to find proper care that it's depressing.

12-31-2002, 04:55 PM	#1
Max Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Montreal,Province of Quebec, CANADA Posts: 15,036	Wheelchair Doesn't Slow Down Popular Home Care Nurse Wheelchair Doesn't Slow Down Popular Home Care Nurse Mary Kroeger, right, visits with Goldie Gerhardt in Gerhardt's apartment in an assisted living center in Clearfield. Kroeger, who was injured in a sledding accident and now uses a wheelchair, is running her home nursing care business from her Layton home, and still makes lots of personal home visits. (Steve Griffin/The Salt Lake Tribune) BY LORI BUTTARS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE LAYTON -- Mary Kroeger knows more about home health care now than she did when she was the one making house calls, giving sponge baths, taking blood pressures and doling out medications. "I know how scary it is to try something for the first time," says the Layton home health care nurse who was paralyzed from the chest down in a sledding accident 10 years ago. "Even just being alone in your own home for the first time can be scary. I know how that feels." The accident may have changed her life, but it has not kept her from her work. Kroeger's home is the command center for Health Watch-Caring Hands Hospice, where she oversees 15 workers who visit the sick and the elderly each day. It might be the mental image of Kroeger running her own business out of a wheelchair or the notion that she is only a phone call away, but many of Kroeger's patients see her as an inspiration. "I was surprised" to see her in a wheelchair, says Goldie Gerhardt, a diabetic whose disposition brightens whenever Kroeger visits. While Kroeger's employees prick Gerhardt's finger for blood tests and administer her insulin shots, Kroeger jokes that she mainly stops by to "give her a hard time." "Probably the thing I miss most about being a nurse is the personal contact with people and helping them," she says. "So, if I have a new patient that is coming home from the hospital or one that's just going into the nursing home, I try to meet them [at the hospital or nursing home] because those facilities tend to be handicapped accessible, where many of their homes might not be." And if she cannot visit them in person, Kroeger starts the new friendships over the phone. "It helps the patients to know that they can call and get Mary 24 hours a day," says home health aide Shay Buck, who works for Kroeger. "It's not like a paging service; they can call and get her on the phone. She has a real way with people." Kroeger, a 44-year-old single mother with two children, tries not to dwell on the accident that left her a quadriplegic. It happened on a hill just down the street from where she lives. After watching her kids play in the snow one afternoon, she took one run down the slope herself and ran into trouble. "I got going fast and backward and I went off the lip of a little ditch," she recalls. "I felt a ping in my neck just as I landed and I knew right then that I was going to be paralyzed." She notes that the accident came at an "interesting" time in her life -- just as she was finishing her master's degree in nursing business. Kroeger's classmates in the master's program through the University of Phoenix arranged to have their classes at the hospital, while she spent five months rehabilitating. The home health care company, where she was working as an area administrator, encouraged her to come back to work as well. "They figured out what I was going to do for a paycheck before I could," she says. "They said, 'We want your brain, not your body.' It blew me a way." That kind of support has helped her weather changes in her personal and professional life. When Medicare changed its policy on home services, the company she worked for decided to concentrate on its nursing-home business and sold off its home health care services to another company that didn't have a position for Kroeger. So she struck out on her own. She still struggles with "ornery insurance companies" and says marketing her own business is not something that comes naturally to her. "If the accident hadn't happened to me while I was getting my master's, I probably wouldn't be here today," she says. "I kind of had gotten to the point where I thought all the kind and caring people had gone away from nursing and people were just doing it for the cash. I know now that isn't always the case." lorib@sltrib.com http://www.sltrib.com/2002/Dec/12312002/utah/utah.asp

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01-31-2003, 11:59 AM	#2
jmcquad Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico Posts: 19	It is so nice to see that someone somewhere cares, it has become so expensive to find proper care that it's depressing.