Closing out a career

Graham birthed, nurtured Home Options

From an early age, Judy Graham felt a deep connection with the elderly.

As she reflected on her passion for home health care and seniors, Graham saw a connection to her grandmothers.

"Both my grandmothers were wise, wise, caring, Christian women," she said. "I still quote them."

Graham, director of Home Options, will retire in August from the agency she started in 1987. A department of Kalispell Regional Medical Center, the agency has grown to offer hospice along with skilled nursing and private care services in homes across the valley.

As she anticipates the close of this career at Home Options, Graham said she has spent a lot of time reflecting on her 18 years there.

She credits God with guiding her to home health.

"I've done nothing without him," Graham said.

She also had it on good authority from a much-loved Catholic nun remembered in the name of Brendan House. Sister Brendan, a social worker at the hospital, approached Graham to start a home-health service for the medical center.

"I said no at first," she said. "She actually told me that God wanted me to do it."

Sister Brendan knew of her strong Catholic faith as well as her wealth of experience gained from years as a home-health nurse and then starting two agencies in Kansas City. After some prayer, Graham took on the challenge.

As the eldest of nine children growing up in Kansas City, Graham never considered a nursing career. Her love of writing and experience editing her high school newspaper led her to study journalism at Benedictine College.

"That was my major," she said. "I wanted to be a foreign correspondent."

Graham graduated just as the Vietnam War was heating up. With no women sent to war zones at that time, she began to have doubts about her career choice.

She also realized how much she had enjoyed her psychology and sociology classes.

"My sociology professor asked, 'Have you ever thought about nursing?'" Graham recalled. "She knew me pretty well."

It wasn't until she graduated from nursing school that she learned her own mother had always dreamed of becoming a nurse.

Graham said she was blessed to attend a school that included a three-month rotation caring for elderly patients in a nursing home.

"As a student nurse, you either loved it or you didn't," she said. "I was one who loved it."

Along with finding the kind of nursing she loved in college, Graham also found Jack, the man she has loved for more than 30 years. The two were married in 1970.

After college, Graham worked first as a floor nurse at St. Joseph's Hospital and then as a discharge planner at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City. She often found herself worrying about how elderly patients would fare on their own.

"So I started working in home health," she said.

Graham found home nursing a perfect fit. She enjoyed teaching patients how to take care of themselves while also becoming a part of their lives.

"The patients are thrilled to see you," she said. "Years later, I can remember homes I went into."

Graham recalled a family with two very ill young children as well as four other children. She provided the nursing care so the family was able to keep the youngsters at home for their short lives.

"I feel they [the family] gave me more than I gave them," she said.

In 1979, Graham's husband accepted an offer to come to work for Kalispell Regional as manager of materials and purchasing. Moving to the Flathead Valley was a dream come true for Graham.

"Kansas is very flat," she said. "I had always wanted to live in the mountains."

The couple moved with their two sons, Matt and Mark. Graham went to work for Flathead County's home-health program.

Soon after her third son John was born, Graham left the county's home-health program to stay at home with her children.

Then, in 1986, Sister Brendan got that message from God about Graham's career. Although Graham protested she wasn't ready to return to paid work, Sister Brendan finally had her way.

"She said, 'Judy we really need you,'" Graham said. "'God told me it's time for you to come back.'"

She set about the organizational tasks of getting approval for the new home-health program. It required acquiring a certificate of need and a license, writing a policy and procedures manual and getting a Medicare/Medicaid certification.

By 1987, Graham was ready to hire people. One of "the original seven," Sharon Corneliuson, still works in the business office for Home Options.

"In 1988, we added the Hospice program," Graham said.

Already a standing program, Hospice asked to become part of Home Options as part of Kalispell Regional. Robin Riley, head of Hospice, has been with the program since those first days.

"In 1996, we added private care to our business," Graham said. "That's when we became Home Options."

With the three divisions, Graham sees the agency as covering all phases of help people need to maintain their independence at home for as long as possible.

"Just pick up the phone and a nurse will talk to you," she said.

Patients served by home health receive skilled care and education from registered nurses, physical, speech and occupational therapists, dietitians, social workers and home-health aides.

Private care aides provide companionship while helping people with meals, cleaning, errands, bathing, dressing and transportation. Hospice coordinates an array of end-of-life services such as pain management for the terminally ill.

Graham said she loves the teamwork involved in coordinating with so many different professionals.

"We currently have about 79 employees,"she said. "I love getting to know the other disciplines."

Graham experienced the impact of these home services in her own family when her father had a heart attack. Home-health professionals taught her mother to care of him.

Her father-in-law received Hospice care when he became terminally ill with cancer.

As she reviewed her many years in home health care, Graham marvels at the changes like computerization of all patient records. Graham laughed about not even having copy machines when she was in school.

"The technology is amazing, but the people are still the same," she said. "People still have pain and they have questions about their diagnosis."

Graham counts helping them stay comfortably and safely at home as the great reward of working in home health.

"Home is very important in our country - it's our sanctuary," she said. "That's what makes home health so special."

In August, Graham embarks on a new path to a new home in Arizona. She will reunite with her husband who accepted an opportunity at a hospital in Kansas City two years ago.

"He and I have been having a long-distance romance," she said.

The two can't wait for their reunion in a planned community southwest of Phoenix, Estrella Mountain Ranch. The development includes two lakes, three golf courses, a club house, restaurant and picnic areas.

"I'm ready to do a bit of relaxing although I'm not the kind to just sit around," Graham said.

She plans to find a good church, an active Bible-study group and a volunteer opportunity with an organization similar to Hope Pregnancy Center.

As she contemplates retirement, Graham can't imagine any blessing she hasn't received.

"I've got a good marriage, three healthy children and I had a career doing what I love to do," she said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.