Category: In a post – COVID world, is assisted living safe?

Sixth grade human biology class. That’s when she knew. Ann Cheverton’s destiny was laid out before her, as clear as the brightly colored musculoskeletal system chart taped to the blackboard. She was going to take care of people.

There was nobody in Ann’s immediate or extended family with a medical or caregiving background. Not even a nurse as a neighbor. It was just in her.

Ann stayed true to her inner calling, exiting her professional training as a registered nurse in England. In the late 80s, Ann crossed the Atlantic and settled in the suburbs of Chicago, working as an oncology, bone marrow transplant nurse.

“I wanted to save everybody,” Ann said. “I was on the acute side of oncology. The high-tech side.”

That drive to save lives and evolve with the field led Ann to branch out into mental health, pharmacy, home health, hospice and population health. It’s like a magic bag of experience.

When her peers were spending the last days of summer lounging at the local pool in Aurora, Illinois, Judith was a thousand miles away. In Georgia. Her cousin was hospitalized after the removal of a 10-pound tumor. The family needed Judith, so she arrived a week after her cousin’s surgery and stayed for a month. She was 14.

“Even at the hospital, my aunt said I was the one waking up when a nurse would come in, and I would be asking what they were giving my cousin,” Judith said. “My mom said as a kid, I could see videos of women giving birth and it wouldn’t gross me out.”

Bev was as tough as farm wives come. A real ball of fire. No time for fun and games when there were crops to tend and mouths to feed — cows’ and kids’.

“Mom is painting cavasses. This just crazy!” Bev’s daughter Dana reported this leisure-time phenomena to Tom, her brother, and they shared a laugh. Their spunky, not-to-be-messed with 78-year-old mother also finds whapping balloons with foam pool noodles quite hilarious. And a great way to engage mind and body daily with her fellow residents.

Like an extra pudding cup in a school kid’s packed lunch or a giddy secret, some things in life are just better shared. For Dave, that thing’s happiness. He’s been giving it away for 81 years.

Maybe Dave’s rosy outlook came from years of working deep in the earth, in coal mining country, Pennsylvania. Or maybe Happiness 101 was the best lesson Dave ever taught in his 30 years as teacher.

Didn’t take long for Dave to find ways to bring light and life to fellow residents.