She describes her work as a calling. It's also a tribute.
As a small child with divorced parents, Deborah Ingram asked to go live with her grandparents. For 12 years, they nurtured her. To honor them, she chose a career that allowed her to pass on to others the same TLC they lavished on her.
A certified nurses' assistant for 25 years, she provides one-on-one long-term care to clients coping with Alzheimer's disease and other infirmities of the aged.
Her employer, Caring Senior Service, introduced a contest to raise money for the Alzheimer's Association. She ranks No. 1 in the area, well on her way to the grand prize - a fancy trip to Puerto Rico.
Surely Granny and Daddy Jeff are up there cheering her on.
She's 54.
nnn
"I was born and raised in Sparta, Tennessee. My parents divorced when I was 2, and my mom moved to West Virginia. When I was 3 or 4, I moved back to Tennessee with my grandmother and lived there for 12 years. My brother and I wanted to go live with Grandma, and Mom agreed to let us go.
"My grandparents pretty much raised me. One of the reasons I went into nursing was to honor them and their memory.
"We were just little country kids playing, and I didn't think of a career then. Later on, I wanted to be a police officer. I wanted to be in corrections. My mom's best friend had a son who was a cop, and I had a crush on him. That didn't last long.
"I was my grandfather's pet. I would hold out my little hand, and he would put a dime in it and that's what I got ice cream with every day. No wonder I was chubby.
"We called him Daddy Jeff. He didn't want to be called Grandpa Jones because of the show.
"I was the light of his life. I lost him when I was 16. I felt guilty about it because I went back to West Virginia to live with my mom, and two years later, he passed. I thought I could have saved him. He was 77. He had diabetes, as I do.
"My grandmother lived until she was 94. My mother and my sister and I went back because they called the family in and said she was going to die. We were all around her bed. She hadn't seen me in 10 years. She didn't know anyone but her one son and her sister. I said, 'Hey, Granny.' She looked up at me. I said, 'You better know me. You helped raise me.' She said, 'You are my Debbie.' My clients all remind me of my grandmother.
"My mom passed 15 years ago. I did her postmortem care. She was at Ruby Memorial, and I asked the nurse if I could help. I wanted to do that for her because she was very proud of me for going into nursing in honor of her parents. She knew why I did it.
"When she took her last breath, I thought, 'I'm a CNA. I've got to keep it together to help my siblings keep it together.' But I'm the one who fell apart. When it's your mother, it's different."
"I got married at 18, in 1980, and had three children. In 1990, I went into nursing. I lived in Wheeling. I went to Moundsville to Mound View Health Care, two blocks from the old prison. I was working there the night when some prisoners broke out. They were digging out of the prison and came out on my girlfriend's yard.
"I went into long-term care. I've always been around the elderly. I tried other routes, and I've always ended back at long-term nursing. It's my life calling. I've tried to shove it to the side and I can't.
"So I started in Moundsville at the nursing home. In 2001, I moved back here and went into private homes. I've worked in all the nursing homes here. But I loved the private duty. You are your own boss.
"I worked for John Michael Enterprises and that took me to Teays Valley. When one of my clients passed away, I went out on my own with a lady she knew.
"I came here to Caring Senior Services three years ago. It's in-home care, the scene I like.
"I'm with my clients until they go or hospice comes in. I cry when they go, just like it's my grandmother.
"You have to have a lot of patience. But first of all, you have to have the heart or you can't do it. Lots of people aren't made out to be a caregiver or a CNA. You have to have a caring heart. You have to love the job and the people. It's all about my grandmother and grandfather.
"I had one gentleman in Wheeling who talked for the first time since he'd been sick. He told me he wanted to go to an eating establishment and what clothes to get. He gave me his home number to call his wife, and it was the right number.
"That's why you give them respect and dignity at all times, because you never know when they will have that one moment of sanity. He had it that one time and never again. His wife couldn't believe it.
"My client in Teays Valley had the intellect of a genius but didn't know the day or the time. She did have lucid moments. She would want her husband. He passed in her arms. She went downhill after that.
"You had to keep her upbeat. Alzheimer's patients are very depressive people. You have to be upbeat all the time. She would cry and want her Bill, her husband. They had a cabin on the Greenbrier River. I said, 'Bill is up in heaven with Jesus, and he's working on that golden cabin and he's about to the roof and if you come right now he might be upset.'
"You have to be two steps ahead of them and know what to say off the top of your head.
"We have to watch 12 films a year to remind you of the things you need to do. Continuing education helps to refresh your memory, but the hands-on experience, that's the only way you are going to learn. That's the way I learned.
"I saw a film that changed my mind about my patients. This doctor over-medicated his patients and played the music of their era to get them to go back to that time to come out of their state of mind. They did do that for a short period, and they'd say things like, 'We are trapped on the inside. We want to tell you we have an itch on our back or we are thirsty, but it doesn't come out like that.' That changed me. Every caregiver should watch a film like that.
"You learn to sense things. My client Shirley, I can tell you what she is going to do or say. You just learn as you go. She can be tricky. I've been with her three years. She misses her husband real bad.
"Her husband doted on her and loved on her. She wants us to do that. She likes a hug and a kiss on the cheek. But she says, 'Don't do that in public.'
"She likes to eat out three times a day. It's Taco Bell, McDonald's, Subway, sometimes Bob Evans. She has been eating out since she retired. Her husband didn't want her to cook. She was a cytotech. She read the cancer slides at CAMC.
"I was voted No. 1 Caring Senior Services employee in the Charleston area. They've been in business 25 years, and they are based out of Texas and have chosen caregivers in each area to represent the company.
"They put up a website and said everyone was to get donations for the Alzheimer's Association, and whoever has $2,000 or more wins a luxury trip to Puerto Rico. Guess what? I'm ahead by a landslide.
"My children have all volunteered in nursing homes and they say they won't let that happen to me, that they will take care of me. Now even my grandkids say, 'You will never go to a home.'
"Now that I'm 54, I want to spend the rest of my time admiring my grandkids and building memories with them so that when I go, they will say, 'Hey, you know what my Maw-maw would do for me?'
"I'm single now and loving it. I don't have a boyfriend and don't need one. I have my grandkids to give my love to, and they give their love to me, and that's my goal.
"I want to continue to work as long as I can. I have no regrets whatsoever. I wouldn't change a thing."
Reach Sandy Wells at
sandyw@wvgazette.com
or 304-342-5027.