On day ten of their Florida vacation, Evelyn became deathly sick with endocarditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart caused by an infection. Evelyn has rheumatoid arthritis and the medications she takes suppress her immune system making her susceptible to illness and infection.

She entered the hospital on January 21 and for the next six weeks things went from bad to worse. She had a number of strokes, went into cardiac arrest and had a blood clot in one of her lungs.

Pat didn’t know anyone in Florida so their two daughters took turns flying to Florida to be with their mom and dad. Pat spent every day by Evelyn’s side not knowing what her fate would be.

After being transferred to four different hospitals in Florida, the doctors told them that Evelyn needed open heart surgery to replace a damaged heart valve. They couldn’t do the surgery for a couple of weeks, and after surgery Evelyn would need to spend another couple of months in a short-term care facility while she recovered.

“When I heard how long we were going to have to remain in Florida, staying there one more minute didn’t make sense. I did some research and found that they could do the surgery at the U of Minnesota so I decided we were going home,” remembered Pat.

Pat chartered a plane to get Evelyn to the U of Minnesota. She had successful open-heart surgery on March 14. A few days after surgery, Evelyn was transferred to a short-term care facility to begin several months of recovery.

Finally, six months after she was first hospitalized, she and Pat headed home to Otter Tail Lake where she would continue to recover.

Because she wasn’t well enough to leave home, they arranged for home care services from Perham Living Home Health Care. She would receive services at home several times a week including:

• nursing and home health aides to help with health care needs and self-care
• occupational therapy to help with activities for daily life
• physical therapy to help with standing and walking
• speech therapy to help with language issues

To start, nurses and home health aides came in to help Evelyn with wound and self-care.

Evelyn had an abdominal wound from a former feeding tube site that needed daily dressing changes. Nurse Melissa Rowe kept a watchful eye over the wound and taught the family wound care so they could change the dressings themselves. She came twice a week for the first few weeks and then once a week for a month. During her visits, she also provided education on signs of infection, medication and pain management, and nutritional needs and answered their questions.

Home health aides came once a week for two weeks to help Evelyn with her self-care needs until she was stronger and then her family was able to take over.

“It was fun working with Evelyn and Pat. They were both very welcoming. Every time we came into their home you could see improvements. You could tell that they were working hard, not only when we were there, but on their own time to reach her goals,” said Melissa.

Evelyn hadn’t walked in the past six months, and needed intensive physical therapy.

Physical therapist, Janna Johnson remembered “Evelyn was wheelchair bound, needed lift devices to stand and move around, and help getting in and out of bed. During our first few treatments, Evelyn was able to stand and take a few steps with our assistance.”

During her physical therapy treatments two times a week for an hour, they worked a lot on functional activities: walking, transfers, getting in and out of bed, etc.

As her strength and endurance increased, Evelyn was able to get rid of the lifts because she could stand and transfer on her own. After a month, she was able to sleep in her own bed and get rid of the hospital bed that they were renting.

As the weeks went on, Evelyn was able to walk longer distances, and progressed from a walker to a cane. She was particularly excited to walk down their hill to the lake.

As she continued to improve, they worked on increasing the length of time she could do activities, worked on balance activities, and progressed with using a cane or no cane at all.

“I truly believe that Evelyn’s motivation and drive to get better is why she is where she is today along with all of her family’s support and help,” said Janna.

Evelyn had a special motivation to keep improving. “Our daughter was getting married in October, and our future son-in-law asked me if I would walk him down the aisle which made me very proud. I was determined to get better and walk as much as I could,” said Evelyn.

After three months, Evelyn was good enough to end home care services and get back out in the community.

“I was sad when they were done because I wouldn’t get to see them anymore. But that’s progress and it means I’m doing well,” said Evelyn.

And when it came time for the wedding, Evelyn was ready.

“I was able to walk my son-in-law down the aisle using my cane. That was a special moment,” said Evelyn.

“Some friends and family who had visited her in the hospital and saw how sick she was, were completely amazed when she walked down the aisle with the cane,” said Pat.

When Evelyn needed knee replacement surgery this past November, the Wickers chose Perham Living Home Health Care again without hesitation.

“You can tell when somebody loves their work versus it’s a job, and the home care team loves their work, said Pat. Evelyn agreed “Everyone on our home health care team became like family.”

About Perham Health 

Perham Health is a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital with three primary care clinics, a 96-bed nursing home, home health care agency, adult day services, memory care assisted living, and senior housing.  The medical staff consists of 24 physicians, a nurse midwife, 14 advance practice clinicians, and three chiropractors. Visit perhamhealth.org to learn more.