Ellen’s story
After 10 years of caring for others’ health Ellen L. discovered the results of ignoring one’s own.
At 55, Ellen left a healthcare job in Seattle to take care of a friend in Portland. The friend passed away five years later at the age of 94. Then Ellen took care of her elderly mother for the next five years.
“All this time I didn’t have any other jobs,” Ellen said. “Caregiving was my job.”
Upon her mother’s passing, Ellen found she had high blood pressure and no insurance for the first time in her life. In February 2010 she discovered the Essential Health Clinic‘s center in Tigard, where staff and volunteers met her urgent medical needs and helped her enroll in Project Access NOW.
Ellen said, “ I got help almost immediately.”
Ellen recalls Family Nurse Practitioner Gillian Rosicky at Providence Medical Group Mercantile to be “the key person to help me get back to a normal life.” Project Access NOW then facilitated hypertension medications for Ellen.
“They call hypertension a ‘silent killer’,” Ellen said. “Project Access NOW really helped me survive a serious period in my life. I might have even lost my life.”
Though Ellen’s high blood pressure got under control, the years of overlooking her health caught up with her. Next she received care from Dr. Mary DeFrank at Hillsboro Eye Clinic and Dr. Amy Hackett at Northwest Renal Clinic. Last came the diagnosis of an enlarged heart.
Ellen said, “I am grateful to all the volunteer doctors for taking care of me. They and their staff treated me with great respect, as any other patient.”
Having worked in healthcare, Ellen says she appreciates the support she received all the more. “Few people understand what goes on behind the scenes. What Project Access NOW is doing is unusual.”
(June 2011)
