HEART’S DESIRE
Special trip helps exbaby nurse remember
Judy Baier, 78, woke up this morning with little memory of yesterday.
She’ll wake up that way again tomorrow.
She no longer recalls details of her life — even her children’s names sometimes elude her — but you can see her heart swell with joy when the essence of a memory slips through the fog in her mind.
When the memories are happy — like her years working as a labor and delivery nurse — Baier’s face fills with an angelic glow.
In those moments, it’s the feelings that matter and not the details — including the sad fact that Baier has dementia, like nearly 6 million Americans.
On Aug. 2, happy memories rushed over Baier when she was treated to a “Heart’s Desire” day by her caregivers at HCR ManorCare’s Arden Courts in West Palm Beach.
They took her on a tour of the new, ultra-modern Birthplace Suites at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. Her special day was modeled after the popular Make-A-Wish charity for children. HCR has granted thou-
‘Absolute heaven. Such warm and beautiful people.’
sands of wishes for dementia patients in the past 20 years.
Baier doesn’t remember, but she does react.
It’s almost like she smells something beautiful — a flower or perfume or just the air — and her broad face fills with a smile.
Her words are superlatives. “Absolute heaven,” she said. “Such warm and beautiful people.”
Judy’s daughter, Connie Guzik, of Royal Palm Beach, filled in some of the blanks in her mother’s story: “She worked in a delivery room in Chicago in the newborn nursery in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This is a walk down memory lane for her.”
Baier had a big smile on her face as she toured the neonatal intensive care unit and the DinoSoar Garden play area at Palm Beach Children’s Hospital at St. Mary’s Medical Center.
“This was my life’s work,” she said. “I have never enjoyed anything so much. Everything here, it’s wonderful. I do hope I get the chance to come back again sometime.”
Thankfully, Baier is happy most of time. Dementia isn’t so kind to everyone. Senses decline along with brain function, and some people have mental symptoms like paranoia, delusions or compulsive behaviors.
Arden Courts emphasizes familiarity and tries to stimulate good memories.
Program services coordinator Nicole Skuban, of Jupiter Farms, says Arden Courts grants two Heart’s Desire wishes each year, and they’d do more if more patients were able to participate. Baier is fairly welloriented — not to mention delightful to be around — so she made a good candidate.
It’s about giving joy and engaging the person in activities they love.
“We make every activity as successful as possible,” Skuban, 52, said. The goal is normalcy, and every patient is different. Some can be distracted with a drink and a cookie.”
For Baier, who likes to be called “Mama Baier,” her well-being has required a tiny “therapeutic white lie.” Baier thinks she works at Arden Courts.
For the most part, no one disagrees. They let her help serving snacks, decorating and performing other jobs.
Baier is a natural caretaker. When she retired to South Florida, she organized theater productions at Venetian Isles in Boynton Beach and regularly checked the blood pressure of a few neighbors. Giving is all she’s ever known, and that desire remains strong and intact.
Baier has a lot to be proud of. She left high school before graduating.
“Life got in the way,” she says. “I was a very young mother.”
She went to work as a nurse’s aide to pay the bills and went back to school to get her high school diploma and then became a licensed practical nurse. She raised four children, including two daughters, who she told, “Be strong. Step up! Be proud of yourself as a women. Don’t let anyone step on you, ever.”
She recalls those admonishments as easily as the alphabet. It’s almost ironic that sometimes she still sounds quite brilliant.
“It’s like losing pieces of yourself somewhere along the way,” she said. It doesn’t happen all at once. “It goes away bit by bit by bit.”
Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for between 60 to 80 percent of cases. It’s extremely difficult to treat because by the time someone is diagnosed, the disease has already done too much damage.
Eighteen months ago, Baier’s family made the difficult choice to move her from her home in Boynton Beach to HCR ManorCare’s Arden Courts on Village Boulevard in West Palm Beach.
For many people, that isn’t an option. In fact, the Alzheimer’s Association estimates that more than 16 million people provide unpaid care for dementia patients at home. Some of the lucky ones end up at Arden Courts, but at $5,700 a month, it doesn’t come cheap.
Baier worked in health care, and she was smart. In 2003, she bought a lifetime health care plan that will pay for her to live at Arden Courts indefinitely. And Baier could live many years, so it’s a comfort to her family knowing she’ll be well cared for.
“She’s safe,” daughter Connie Guzik said. “We don’t have to worry. And these people are incredible, hard-working and do so much.”
Last month, Guzik went along when Skuban supervised a group of 11 patients on a trip to the theater. “I give Nicole a lot of credit. This was the best decision we ever made.”
For Skuban, working with seniors isn’t a job. It’s a calling.
“My work has always come first,” she said. “This job gives me so much. Life. A purpose.”
The married mother of two has accomplished mindfulness as a way of life.
“We live in the moment here,” Skuban said. “That’s all there is.”