Sister caregivers more “vigilant” against virus
Padaken and Batson on front line of coronavirus battle at Abundant Life Assisted Living Center
They don’t finish each other’s sentences. They capsize them, warmly, the way sisters do.
“It helps with us having different personalities,” Cheryl Padaken says, “because I’m more …”
“Assertive,” Hydelene Batson interjects.
Everybody laughs.
“I’m more assertive, A to B,” Padaken confirms, picking the thread back up again.
“And I know how to get through things,” Batson says. “You have to pick and choose your battles.”
They didn’t pick this one. But the campaign to defend some of the most vulnerable among us along the Front Range from the coronavirus pandemic roped them in anyway.
Padaken and Batson’s front line is
Abundant Life Assisted Living in Castle Rock, where the sister team are live-in care-givers, a combo who’ve devoted more than three decades of service to older people.
“It’s just more being vigilant about who comes in,” Padaken says. “And under my watch, (we’re) sanitizing and wiping everything now. We’d do that anyway, but it’s about being more assertive about washing the hands and touching. And washing the residents’ hands and not really following them around, but being cautious.”
Abundant Life is based inside a 6,000-square-foot, two-story home about a mile from the Red Hawk Ridge golf course. The facility has six residents and is licensed for nine, with ages ranging from the mid80s to the mid-90s.
Padaken and Batson alternate shifts in order to make sure that one or the other is on call around the clock. Essential visitors have to fill out a state-provided form, sanitize their hands, get their temperatures taken and wear face masks and gloves just to make it past the front door.
“For the other health care workers that come through, we have a table stationed outside,” Padaken says. “I’m like, ‘Everybody gets screened outside the house.’ Because once they get in, it’s too late, because (the virus) is airborne. The less we have to bring in, the less we have to worry about.”
In other words, COVID19 just picked a fight with the wrong ladies.
“Yeah, they work well together,” Abundant Life owner Allyson Gehring says. “So each gives strengths that are applied to the home.”
Padaken took on a life’s work on a lark. The fork in the road hit about 1987. While teaching in her mid20s, she applied for, and landed, a position as a nursing aide.
“(And) took it because the pay was good,” she says. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I can — how should I say it — change diapers.’
“At the time, my husband said, ‘Well, you won’t know if you like it until you try, versus passing on the opportunity and not knowing. If you try it and you don’t like it, you can always quit.’ ”
She never did. The next 30 years saw Padaken run the health care gamut, from hospitals, care homes and nursing homes to her own consulting service with clients spread across the country.
“And to this day, they still find me,” Padaken cracks, “as much as I change my number.”
Batson, the older of the two, went into the health care field back in their native Hawaii to help support four boys. With the nest empty, Padaken queried her big sister in the fall of 2018 as to whether she’d be keen on becoming an assisted-care package deal in Colorado.
“And I was like, ‘Why not? You know, I’ve never been to Colorado, give it a try,’ ” Batson says.
Padaken — whose areas of expertise include Alzheimer’s, dementia and hospice care — joked that a few residents are even enjoying a mini-vacation, of sorts, from frequent family visits. The social distancing and stay-at-home edicts remind her of the fallout from volcano eruptions back home. Only on steroids.
“When we had lava flows in Hawaii, it was pretty much on lockdown,” says Padaken, author of the book “Making Sense of the Death and Dying.” “But not so extreme, like it is in this situation. As live-ins, we’re locked down anyway. This is, to us, to me, not a crisis. Not being able to go to Starbucks for two days, that’s a major crisis.”
And where caffeine fails, teamwork turns the engine over. The tandem’s skill sets are as complementary as their personalities: Batson, for example, handles more of the cooking; Padaken takes on the majority of the house management. One’s a planner. The other’s a hugger.
“I’m the good cop,” Batson laughs.
“I’m the bad one,” Padaken counters.
“It’s like (parenting) kids. One’s got to be the disciplinarian and one’s got to be the one who goes, ‘That’s OK, come here.’
“So we each have our roles. Which is nice.”
They play them with love. Which is even better.