Cheryl Lemmon has been a nurse since 2004, serving in various units, but as soon as she tried home health care she knew that was where she belonged.
“I have a bachelor’s degree in social work, and the whole thing about social work, the reason it’s different from psychology, is because you look at the whole picture,” Lemmon said. “You’re looking at their family, their home, their surrounding, their upbringing, their culture, and you don’t get that in the hospital.
“I like the big picture,” she added.
Since 2018, Lemmon has been working for Community Health Professionals (CHP) of Bryan as a home health and hospice nurse.
She said while an illness in a hospital has to be treated quickly and efficiently, she likes being able to form relationships with the home patient and their family.
“I think you can make more intelligent decisions about how to teach them, how to treat them, things that even the doctors can’t see because they don’t realize what’s going on at home,” Lemmon said. “And we can see that, and we can develop relationships with the people that you don’t get in a hospital.”
During a recent ridealong in which Lemmon visited two patients, those relationships were on display.
One was a 97-year-old male who is homebound and originally had a respiratory illness. He has overcome that but now stays on home health due to a malnutrition diagnosis simply because he has lost a little weight. Lemmon talked about Ohio State Buckeye football, the recent presidential debate — which he watched because he has always been a follower of politics — and his love of sausage sandwiches from the Williams County Fair.
With the other, a 93-year-old who was living with her daughter and recently suffered a stroke, she talked to her and with her daughter about their love of gardening and how nice the yard looked, as well as having someone come in to wash her hair and style it.
Lemmon said home health also applies to her strengths more as a nurse.
“I get that drive time, and that’s when I get to think,” Lemmon said. “I think about the last person I saw, was there something I should have done different, or wanted to do different the next time.
“And then I think about the next person, and I have time to actually get all those pieces together so I can do it better,” she added.
Lemmon said she avoided working hospice care for the first several years she was a home health nurse at other agencies, but when she thought about working for CHP she knew hospice care would be necessary.
She’s also found even more gratification in her job through it. Now, she’s also the hospice coordinator for CHP of Bryan.
“As I kept doing more of it, I got more and more gratification and better at communicating with the patients and their families on hospice,” Lemmon said.
During the recent visit with the stroke victim, she discussed scheduling a nurse’s aid to come help the daughter with turning her mother periodically and other assistance, as well as possible life expectancy given the situation.
Skilled nursing (non-hospice) and hospice care require different ways of thinking for treatment, she said.
“When you’re going in to see skilled people, you’re like, we need to address the blood pressure, we need to address this new wound, and call the doctor, get orders, order medications, it’s all geared to treatment and cure, or at least management.
“With hospice, you kind of stop worrying about all that stuff as much, and just every single decision you make is based on, ‘Is this going to make them comfortable?’” she said. “And if it’s not, let’s talk about whether we want to do it or not, because it’s very patient centered.”
Being originally from Montpelier and having lived for years in the Edon area, Lemmon said she also likes that CHP of Bryan serves Williams County.
“All of our nurses are in the county, they’re from this county,” Lemmon said. “So, you just can’t hardly beat that response and that ability to understand the culture, I think that’s huge.”
She added the largely German culture of Williams County is typically stoic in that many, especially men, do not want to be a bother to anyone.
“They want to take care of themselves, and they feel like they don’t need help as much, so you just have to kind of have that thought in the back of your mind when you’re educating and trying to help them,” Lemmon said.
A home health nurse’s schedule can be somewhat fluid, she said, and there are times local nurses may be required to help out a CHP agency in another county if they are short handed. Lemmon said for those that like variety in their day, like her, that can be a good thing.
She said even during COVID, the home health nurses were still making visits, though they may have worn extra protective equipment depending on if the patient or family member had tested positive.
“We still felt very strongly that the point of home care is to keep people out of the hospital if we can,” Lemmon said.
She also said there are many misconceptions in the public eye about hospice care.
One of those is that hospice will take patients off their previous medications. Lemmon said while they may evaluate if a particular medicine is still needed, ultimately the decision is up to the patient.
“That’s when we’re at our best,” Lemmon said. “We can go in and say, ‘You know that statin that you’re on for cholesterol? We don’t really have to worry about those long-term cholesterol worries at this point.’
“And we try to put it all very gently,” she added. “If they want to keep taking their statin, that’s okay. We’re just going to tell them what’s probably helping and what’s not helping. Because comfort is a big thing. “
That goes for the family as well as the patient.
“We just try to be attentive to what the family needs,” Lemmon said. “It’s not just for the patient, it’s for the family. It’s for the caregivers.
“It’s very rewarding and I’m really happy I do it.”
