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Gift dollars have helped VNA and Hospice
make over 80,000 home visits to patients like:
Lori is 4 years old and likes to color. Lori has a brain tumor and leukemia. Her father and her uncle both received VNA services while receiving treatment for their brain tumors. Her father and her uncle have recently passed away. Lori has two siblings, a 7 year old and a 2 year old. Her mother has the sole responsibility of caring for Lori and her siblings. The family was spending most of their time traveling between Hollister and Lucile Salter Packard Hospital for lab draws and hydration until VNA alerted physicians that we could do these procedures in the home. VNA is now performing the testing at home and Mom is able to work out a schedule to take the children on day trips to the park so Lori can color the pretty birds. Lori’s prognosis is not good and we do not expect Lori to be with us much longer - but VNA is there to make sure she receives the care she needs and VNA will be there for her siblings -- because they also have the gene that predicts cancer.
Maria and Manuel have lived, worked and raised a family in the Salinas Valley for 65 years. Retired from the fields, Manuel has developed Alzheimer’s and their children have all grown and moved away. Manuel wanders and Maria always has to have an eye on him, as he will suddenly walk out the nearest door and out into the street. Maria struggled alone for many years until she learned of VNA’s Salinas Adult Day Center. Now, Maria drops Manuel off in the morning, twice a week, and goes off to do the grocery shopping and meet with some of her old friends while Manuel socializes and plays games with others at the Center. Maria says it has meant so much to her to have Manuel safe and happy again. She didn’t want to loose him physically as well as mentally to an institution. She said she thought she would never have a normal life again. But now, Manuel is walking better from the exercise class, he is less irritable, and he sleeps all night again, in his own bed.
Frank will be 94 next month – and all he wants is to stay at home on “spaghetti hill” in Monterey, where he can care for his wife Angie who is blind and suffers from dementia. When he learned he needed a heart bypass, he wondered how he could continue to care for her and what would happen if he couldn’t. The nonprofit VNA had the answer – telehomecare. By placing a small unit in the kitchen, VNA is now able to check frequently on Frank’s health. With the VNA nurse in her office and Frank in his kitchen, they can see and hear each other. A VNA nurse still comes to the home once a week and on other days, Frank uses the unit to check all of his vital signs again – weight, blood pressure, blood oxygen and heart sounds – and the results are transmitted to the VNA office. VNA sends the test results to the doctor’s office and discusses any changes that seem appropriate. The camera on the home unit allows Frank to show the VNA nurse the label on a new prescription, for example, or a wound that may be concerning him. Frank says the best part of telehomecare is that it “gives me an incentive to help myself. A doctor’s appointment can be one or two months apart, and a lot of things could happen. I know this is keeping Angie and me together and out of the hospital.”
Claire was a strong-willed 90-year-old King City woman. Claire had been on VNA hospice but improved after 6 months, with the encouragement of her husband to live. Claire had severe cardiac problems so she continued VNA care under homecare. Unfortunately, her husband died suddenly and Claire found herself deteriorating quickly. Claire went back on hospice and the nursing team managed pain control, wound care and symptoms so she could die peacefully.
David was struggling with Helen’s dementia. She seemed depressed all the time and wasn’t eating correctly. When the doctor recommended that he look into the Salinas Adult Day Center, he felt defeated and guilty. The first day he brought Helen in, he was surprised to see all the other clients talking and playing chair-volleyball with a beach ball. He told me later, “What a lively group they all were!” Helen attended the Day Center for two years before her death. David says they were the happiest two years of her life. She loved going down to see her “ladies” and would often ask David to drive down on weekends to peek into the window to make sure the Center truly was closed.
(Names have been changed to protect our patients' privacy)
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