MAY 2021 | 5
CELEBRATE NURSES
Winner Community
Casady Froman
CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
Coordination is a big part of the job for Casady Froman. Froman is the nurse care manager at Regency Albany, a skilled nursing facility. She sees to the needs of the 40 patients in the building. Residents are there for therapy, long-term care, psychiatry care or rehabilitation. Not only does Froman coordinate all of the care, she schedules appointments with a doctor’s office, specialist or house physician or outside provider of any kind. She coordinates with patients’ families as well as providing wound care, medications, holding patients’ and families’ hands, and having tough conversations with family members. There is in place a nurse management team, so Froman does have some help, but communication and care coordination mostly is her responsibility. Froman has been a nurse for five years and has worked for Regency for four years. She started in the field as a certified nursing assistant 13 years ago at age 18. “Always in the back of my mind, I wanted to be a nurse,” she said. Life hasn’t been easy. Froman got married and
went into phlebotomy, the drawing of blood. She had children and was struggling in a bad marriage but managed to go to nursing school. Today, she is divorced, engaged to a wonderful man, she said, and back in school full time, studying to be a licensed practical nurse. “I kind of always knew I would go into this field,” she said. “I’ve always been a caring person and liked caring for people.” Froman works 40 hours a week and is oncall at least one weekend a month. She has four children, ages 12, 10, 6 and 1, to care for at home. She said it all is possible because she has a village behind her. Her parents live next door to her and she can count on them to help with her children, especially since the pandemic and school closures. Her grandmother likes to watch the youngest child. Balancing work and life is a big challenge for Froman. “Because I put so much heart into my job, it’s hard to hang up on the weekend,” she said. “If it’s not my on-call weekend, it’s really hard for me to just un-click. Especially if I had so send somebody to the hospital on a Friday night; it’s really hard for me to not call the building to check what’s going on.” Froman especially wanted to be there for patients during COVID as their families were not allowed in to visit or to come hold their hand through the hard times. “It’s been really difficult for me to sit on the inside of a window with my resident as their family is on the other side of the window and they are talking through a cell phone,” she said. “Or to tell the family they can come in right now, only because your family member is dying. “I love helping people who come in who have had something tragic happen, and watch them walk out. Knowing that I was a part of that; to change their life for the better is the best feeling.” She has cared for patients who have resided at the Regency for years, and said there is no feeling that can match watching them go from bedridden to walking with a walker and eventually seeing them walk out the front door, knowing she was their cheerleader the entire time and helped push them to do it. She will complete her education with a bachelor’s degree, and celebrate with her wedding.
