Nursing home workers turn party into ramp so patient can go home

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Nursing home workers turn party into ramp so patient can go home
By Ed Jacovino
Journal Inquirer
Published: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 11:29 AM EST

Angie Sanchez came home last week after spending seven months in a hospital and rehabilitation center — and she can thank a December snowstorm that canceled a holiday party, setting the stage for an act of generosity.

“It just makes you say there are still good people out there,” says Sanchez, 35, who rejoined her husband and two young daughters at their East Hartford home last week.

Sanchez was cleared to return home in late December, but doctors said two steep stairs in the front of her house would have kept her stuck inside. The problem was that Sanchez needs to leave for dialysis treatment three times each week.

Workers at Bidwell Care Center in Manchester, where she was recovering, gave up a holiday party to build a ramp in front of her home.

“It was a blessing when they came and started building that ramp,” Hector Sanchez, her husband, said. “I wouldn’t be able to do something like that.”

Sanchez was hospitalized after an optional medical procedure caused an infection, they say. And for seven months one infection led to the next.

Meanwhile, a snowstorm canceled Bidwell employees’ holiday party. After hearing Sanchez’s case, workers agreed to use the money to pay for a ramp at Sanchez’s house. They raised more money and looked for private donations.

Now, Sanchez is home, and the workers at the rehab center are planning a smaller party with extra money they’ve raised.

For Kim Wanegar-Nation, the center’s director of rehabilitation, the decision to build the ramp was an easy one. “The ramp was really the only solution,” she said.

Getting patients ready to live at home is Wanegar-Nation’s job. Before they’re sent out, she does an inspection of the house. Sanchez uses a cane to get up and down the stairs in the family’s home. But the two steps in the front of the house were steep and shallow. “She would never be able to do it,” Wanegar-Nation said.

The government doesn’t give money for the ramps, Wanegar-Nation said. Finding a private donor quickly isn’t easy.

The rehab center’s employees became that donor, said Michael Landi, administrator at Bidwell’s Touchpoints Rehabilitation and Wellness Program.

The employees raffle off things such as gas cards and run bake sales to fund the yearly holiday party. The biggest fundraiser last year was a candy sale that raked in $785, Landi said.

The $1,384 that had been set aside for the party was put toward Sanchez’s ramp. Another private donor, who Landi wouldn’t name, pitched in the rest. In the end, the ramp cost them $1,900.

Now, Angie Sanchez is back at home.

She missed both of her daughters’ birthdays. “Belated birthday” cakes are in the works for Chelsea, 11, and Crystal, 10.

“Being home with my family, that’s the most important thing,” Sanchez said. “I’ve never been away from them since they’ve been born.”

The girls visited her when they could, but Hector, her husband, an electrician based in Springfield, worked long hours. His manager let him change his schedule so he could cook his daughters’ dinner. The girls learned to do their own laundry.

Hector remembers the first time he got dinner right. A Spanish-flavored rice, pork, and pigeon-pea dish had stumped him before. The second time, he had Angie talk him through it over the phone. For Thanksgiving, Hector cooked the turkey.

“He made sure they didn’t miss out on anything,” Angie Sanchez said. “He really had to step up his fathering.”

The Sanchez family says they want to find a way to thank the folks at Bidwell, but they don’t know how. Even Landi, the rehab center’s administrator showed up to build the ramp, they say.

The ramp, still without paint, sticks out 20 feet from the front of the house. It takes the place of the two stairs that covered the 18 inches from the ground to the family’s front door.

Angie Sanchez is still getting adjusted to life at home. It’s things like tucking her daughters into bed and hearing them practice their musical instruments — Chelsea plays the violin and Crystal plays the trumpet — that take up most of her attention now, she says.

“It’s been a lot of hugs and kisses,” Sanchez said.

http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2009/02/17/towns/manchester/doc499ae5f02b653973384257.txt